A Devil in Despair
by Keiran
Summary: There is a solution to every problem, even if sometimes one needs to step outside the realms of logic, common sense, or even human domain. Sherlock knows this and acts accordingly, while John is left picking up the pieces.
1. Chapter 1

Title: A Devil in Despair

Rating: 14

Genre: drama

Wordcount: 28k

Warnings: slight gore.

Summary: There is a solution to every problem, even if sometimes one needs to step outside the realms of logic, common sense, or even human domain. Sherlock knows this and acts accordingly, while John is left picking up the pieces.

Author's note: the story is finished, will be posted whole over the next couple of days.

Credits: Strongly influenced by iSupernatural/i, oddly enough ithe Mentalist/i and Neil Gaiman's iLucifer/i (to the point of borrowing characters from the latter).

Betaed by Yami_Tai. 3 Thank you so much, hun, for all the hard work!

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

It was a moon-less night. John knew as much, because the calendar in his mobile phone somehow had the event marked. Why it would be marked, he had no idea. Perhaps one of Harry's blink and miss hobbies was to blame.

It occurred to him then that his bed was far less comfortable than he would have liked, the light assaulting his eyeballs was at all the wrong angles, and all of his body ached. No, not precisely that. He closed his eyes and reconsidered. His shoulder ached, certainly. His leg, now that was a smorgasbord of pains and soreness, and each one radiated discomfort where there should be none.

His breathing was less comfortable than he generally preferred.

"Your ribs are not broken," someone said. "All things considered you should have been released the last time you woke up. I fail to understand the purpose behind this preposterous waste of hospital funds. You hardly need to be hospitalised, at all."

Great, John thought. Sherlock.

"Has anyone ever told you your bedside manner is frankly appalling?"

"You never complained before."

"I seem to be off morphine, at long last. That makes a difference."

"Were you on morphine? It was hard to tell by the quality of your insights."

"It's good that you didn't go into practising medicine. The suicide rates amongst your patients would have been high."

Sherlock gave him a long look over the cover of Gray's Anatomy. "Diagnostics are interesting. I might reconsider my career options yet."

"God save us all."

There was a long moment of silence, one John was unfamiliar with. Sherlock was trying to say something, he realised after a minute. He was searching for words and failing to produce a question that was, very clearly, of utmost importance to him. John's gaze slid to the book in his lap. He didn't even need to look at the text, just by the general page count he could see it was open on the chapter about spinal cord injuries.

Splendid, really. The cause of his present discomfort turned out to be yet another heavy volume on the many exciting catastrophes a human body can endure. Its spine was digging into his hip. "I seem to be fine," he said at long last, when Sherlock gave no outward sign of having found the words. "Either you are overreacting, or I have been switched to other medication." John gave his IV a critical look. No, definitely no more medication. His toes seemed to be in working order, a discovery that brought him great pleasure. Toes tended to be under-appreciated by the general populace, he found as he watched his own wiggle under the thin covers. Fantastic things, toes.

Sherlock coughed. "I'm- I was just reading."

"Please tell me an actual doctor was involved in my treatment," John said. "Oh God, lie if you must."

"There is a doctor," Sherlock replied, pulling yet another book from John's bed, apparently in order to cross-reference a rib. "She's making sure a car-crash victim dies on schedule."

"Brilliant. So is there a reason you are sitting here reading up on spinal injuries when you could be out there, exasperating Lestrade?"

"He's busy."

"I see. So what you are suggesting is that every crime perpetrated in London is, in fact, Lestrade's own doing and when he is busy elsewhere, you have nothing to do."

A ghost of a smile appeared on Sherlock's sallow face. "You are perfectly fine."

"So I'm noticing." John made the effort and sat up. Other than the shoulder ache and his left side feeling tender, he felt no worse than he would on a morning after a long night at the pub. Better even, considering some of his college parties.

There was a rectangular dressing on his back, he discovered with utter calmness some seconds later. Right over the first vertebrae of the lumbar section of his spine. "I'm assuming it wasn't serious?"

"Clearly," Sherlock said, returning to his book as though the matter was of no concern. The page tore as he turned it a little faster than necessary.

"Doctor Watson, I presume?"

John looked up. It was just his luck that his doctor would be an attractive woman of about his own age and that she had gotten to know Sherlock before they had the chance to talk. "Good morning."

"Afternoon, John," Sherlock said without looking up.

"You feel like remembering a conversation?" the doctor continued, ignoring Sherlock completely. A smart woman, John decided right off the bat.

"I think so, yes."

"Good. Well, I'm pleased to say that despite an act of horrendous stupidity, you are in excellent health. The dressing on your back will need to stay there for a week or so, but the injury looked much worse than it actually was, so you needn't be concerned. Everything else is bumps and bruises."

"I'm sorry, did you just say horrendous stupidity?"

"Did I? I have been informed you were trying to repair a gas leak." An arched eyebrow seemed to question the story, but the doctor nevertheless pressed on. "I'm sure there are plenty of people who would tell you why this was a very bad idea. I do envy your luck, mind."

"Yes, I was lucky," John said weakly, glaring at Sherlock.

"Do you have any questions?"

"Yes, actually, how soon can I be out of here?"

"God, please, now, if you can manage." For the first time since entering the doctor looked at the great detective. "Your friend has been scaring my patients. I'm prepared to risk your life just to get him out of here."

Sherlock snorted into his book and the doctor rolled her eyes. "The nurses are beginning to rebel, too. I would be happiest if we could keep you overnight, for observation, just in case, but frankly you have been questioning my expertise, so I assume you can treat yourself from now on."

"Did I?" John asked, looking from the grinning doctor to Sherlock. "That doesn't sound like me."

"You have a very convincing actor for a twin brother then." She jotted something down on her chart and signed it with a flourish. "A nurse will be along shortly to change the dressing, I'll have her bring the paperwork too. I'm sure she'll appreciate you going out for coffee before she gets here," she told Sherlock.

"Already had three this morning."

"I'll have dialysis equipment set up for you then. Out."

Sherlock gave John a long look, but made his way out without further protest. John was vaguely grateful. There was stiffness in his movements, suggesting he hadn't got nearly enough exercise for the past few days, and if John had learned anything, anything at all, it was that Sherlock must be kept at a level of sufficient bodily comfort, however insane his standards were, otherwise there would be hell to pay.

"I didn't say anything too embarrassing?"

"Not as far as I'm concerned, no."

"Sherlock's been around a lot more often though, hasn't he?"

"Oh yes, day and night. We released him a few days back. It's quite touching." The doctor's hand travelled to her bosom in the universal gesture among females of "oh, that is so sweet, you two are such a cute couple."

"Is he okay?" John asked, resigned. One of these days he would have to get Sherlock a girlfriend, a deaf, mute and mad one, just so he could hold a conversation with a woman without having her declare her vehement support for gay rights.

"If you mean medically, then yes, he most certainly is. Otherwise, he is barking mad."

"Oh, that's all right then." John said to the doctor's back, as she left the room.

Sherlock returned with the coffee, however, before the nurse the doctor sent had the chance to leave. John saw her give the second paper cup a disapproving look, watched her open her mouth and then wither under Sherlock's gaze. She cleared out of the room in record time with John's discharge papers.

"You seem to be in remarkably good shape," John said, taking a sip of his coffee.

"Explosions are just statistics," Sherlock said, refusing to elaborate.

"Statistics."

"There're minute variations, but overall it is possible to generate a model that predicts more or less safe areas in any given blast."

The world, John decided, had been in mortal peril ever since Sherlock had discovered sarcasm. "Good job, I'm sure." There had been plenty of Semtex, he remembered, and though he wasn't a bomb expert he had seen the footage of the site where the elderly lady had been killed. The shock wave alone should have painted the wall with them. "You didn't hit your head by any chance?"

"Why?"

"It might cure your utter idiocy."

Sherlock looked away.

"It's not my place to lecture you, but the next time you find yourself inclined to arrange a private rendezvous with a psychopathic criminal mastermind do me the courtesy of finding me a replacement flatmate first. I happen to like Baker Street."

"And risk you calling Mycroft?" Sherlock's left eyebrow was delicately arched and his tone carried - in so far as it was possible for Sherlock - the vague hint of contrition and something akin to a peace offering.

"Mycroft will be the least of your worries," John promised. In the back of his head there was the diluted memory of a roaring blast, a groaning concrete structure and then a shock of cold water, choking the breath out of him. Then a stretch of alternating lights and darkness, blurred faces - most with a halo of dark curls - and then this morning, or afternoon.

"What time is it?"

"One o'clock. Wednesday."

John's eyebrows stretched his forehead. "It's been a week?"

"They," Sherlock started, fitting resentment and annoyance into the otherwise anonymous pronoun, "found it necessary to sedate you."

"No wonder the doctor wants me discharged." John had hoped the violent flashbacks were a thing of the past, but clearly as soon as his brain processed the explosion it wanted to punch something.

Good thing he was living with Sherlock, then.

"Get out, I need to get dressed," he said. "Do I have any clothes here?"

The follow up left John wishing he'd never returned from Afghanistan. Bombs exploded in the desert just as alarmingly as they did in London, but in Afghanistan no one expected him to describe the experience in minute detail. By the time the police were satisfied John had been gritting his teeth and planning Sherlock's demise for putting him through the ordeal.

He fired his therapist after the second post-explosion session. She wasn't surprised and wished him well, if he correctly interpreted her cautioning him about continuing his relationship with Sherlock.

He regretted it as soon as he stepped out of the office. Sure, she was annoying and any progress he might have made was more due to the frequent bursts of adrenaline and not talking it over. She tried, he appreciated that, but trying to get his head fixed would have taken more than an hour of stilted conversation every week. Considering recent events fixing his head would require a lobotomy.

He walked back to Baker Street trying not to think, lest his mind stray to the horrors that awaited in the flat. Sherlock had taken the attempt at their lives personally, it seemed, and was working around the clock to find Moriarty and, presumably, deliver a bouquet of flowers and a dinner invitation.

Well, maybe not. Not unless the flowers were poisoned and the dinner was held in a vat of piranhas.

It was a reasonably pretty day, windy but rain-free, and were it not for the traffic and constant blaring of horns, John would have enjoyed his morning tremendously. Unfortunately, he was acutely aware of the subtle whir of CCTV cameras turning towards him, and every now and then he spotted a sleek black car, always too far to draw attention, but close enough for an intervention.

John skipped up the stairs to the flat, only noticing something was amiss with his hand on the door. He smelled smoke. His mind turned to a litany of "Sherlock", "No, please, God, no", "Going to kill you, you bastard" and "No more experiments in the house, I mean it!"

The fears proved to be unfounded. He opened the door to find Sherlock sitting in the middle of the darkened living room, surrounded by a hundred candles. When his eyes got used to the shivering lights he was able to see a white circle on the floor, surrounding Sherlock, and a set of highly suspect silver dishes in front of him.

It said something about his state of mind that the very first thing to pop into his mind and make itself know via his mouth was, "So, will he be staying for dinner?"

Sherlock turned. "What?"

"The devil. I assume you are extending a dinner invitation? It is Thursday."

Sherlock's face remained a picture. "Don't be absurd, John. The devil has far more urgent matters to attend to rather than consult mortals."

"I take it there is sulphur-free food in the house, then?"

It took Sherlock a minute to answer. "Yes, I think so. Don't touch the bread, though…"

"It's an experiment," John finished for him. "Figures. Any tea?"

"Two sugars, please."

John rolled his eyes, but the kitchen was relatively clean (a huge surprise, John cleaned it up in the morning, was out for most of the day, and Sherlock was home) and he needed a cup of tea. He took the cups to the living room, liberated his chair from a tray of candles and sat down.

"What are you up to?" he asked after a few minutes, during which Sherlock made no move to take the tea or seem like a sane human being.

"You fired your therapist, good."

"So I keep hearing. What are you doing?"

"Gathering data."

"I see." John waited for a few beats, hoping for a punch line. It didn't arrive. Instead, Sherlock poured what had to be blood, because cranberry juice wouldn't have had the same effect, from the silver beaker into a silver goblet and arranged it artfully on the floor, next to the silver plate on which a handful of ashes was still smoking. He unfolded, a spectacle no doubt, and stepped out of the circle. "And what data requires blood in a silver goblet?"

Sherlock, to John's surprise, seemed abashed. He mumbled something under his breath, then looked away.

"Sorry, didn't catch that."

"I think Moriarty may be aided by demons," Sherlock said.

John stared. "Right," he said when it became clear he'd heard correctly and that there would be no elaboration. "Right. Tell you what, I'm gonna go down to the pub, you clean this up and for God's sake, don't piss off Lestrade in the foreseeable future. At the very least, until you get rid of whatever it is you're smoking now."

"I'm not smoking anything. I've quit."

"Yes, let's say I believe you. I need some fresh air." It was a good thing he hadn't had the chance to take his jacket off yet, he thought, as he hurried down the stairs and back into the windy streets of London.

Sherlock was losing it.

Moriarty had been silent since the night at the pool, most of London had been quiet, and Sherlock was going crazy. They'd spent Friday night scaring some poor kid to death, because he'd lifted a chocolate bar from a corner store and Sherlock had been desperate for some action. John had felt bad about it later, but on the plus side, the kid would likely never shoplift again, not after a night of finding a crazed sociopath and his flatmate around the corner.

A bored Sherlock was a dangerous Sherlock, that was certain, but a crazed Sherlock, that was a whole new brand of disturbing. John could almost feel sorry for Moriarty, when he repressed the memory of being strapped to a bomb, because he knew that the merest shred of evidence, a hint, a suggestion, would send Sherlock careening after the criminal mastermind with the momentum of a speeding train, and the collision would likely be the end of them both.

He contemplated calling Mycroft, but what good could that do, when Sherlock barely tolerated sharing a room with the man? The best John could do at the moment was to grin, hide the evidence and, sometime in the future, deliver a solemn eulogy at the detective's (inevitably empty, for want of recognisable pieces) grave.

John preferred not to dwell on the possibility, if only because he knew that in that eventuality Sherlock would have taken with him a substantial chunk of the world. Already the mere mention of Moriarty sent him into frenzies the like of which was only available to seasoned addicts of various substances. No, this ending had to be prevented at all cost, if only because John had delivered one too many eulogies in his lifetime.

Granted, his treacherous mind provided, for a man of modest literary ambitions (damn blog, it turned out to be quite addictive) the challenge of writing a final farewell for such a singular specimen as Sherlock was not to be scoffed at.

The other option, one that John found far more probable, was that one day, somewhere in the world, there would be a magnificent fireworks display, one that would consume the curious threesome of himself, Sherlock and Moriarty, likely stuck together respectively trying to defuse, admiring and setting off an enormous explosive. The subsequent eulogy would then be delivered by Harry (a scary thought, best avoided), or Lestrade.

John then wondered what did it say about his character, that he considered his own violent death preferable to two madmen doing each other in, hopefully by means of jagged rocks and turbulent waterfalls, to rid the world of the evidence.

He supposed he had to be quite mad indeed.

A casual glance to his watch revealed he'd been wandering for almost an hour, which should have given Sherlock more than enough time to clean up the candle experiment, whatever it was, and hide the drugs, whatever they were.

It hadn't. Sherlock had made no move to lift so much as a single candle, or pick up a single crumbled sheet of paper, a fact made all the more appalling by the presence of a young lady in a fetching cocktail dress.

"Don't mind me," John said, grabbing the kettle and fixing himself a cuppa. "I'm off to read."

Sherlock didn't acknowledge his presence, but the woman smiled at him across the room. John, not quite certain what he was doing, sped up and all but leapt for the comfort of his bedroom. He wondered why his heart wouldn't quieten for another quarter of an hour.

Finally, when his cup was empty and sleep seemed like a near possibility, there had been a crash and then a scream.

John shot up as if bitten. It was Sherlock's voice, he realised, already halfway down the stairs, and he was begging for the woman not to go-

Wait, John thought as his brain caught up, nearly tripping him on the final steps. He wasn't begging, whatever the tone had implied. "Do not go!" Sherlock had yelled, "I command you!" followed by more words John failed to make out.

"What?" John asked when he had Sherlock, a curiously dishevelled and wide-eyed Sherlock, in sight. "What do you mean 'command'?"

"Nothing," Sherlock said. "It's- it's not important."

He was lying. The knowledge hit John like a pool of icy water. Sherlock was lying and falling apart in the dark living room full of shimmering candles, bent in half over a goblet of blood.

Of course, that had to be the exact moment Lestrade finally got off his arse and saw to it that a sufficiently confusing crime had been committed.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

John considered a crumpet. Not a fancy food, exactly, nothing he'd serve on any memorable occasion, rather a perfect side dish to afternoon tea. He was in the habit of having his bronzed and buttered, though a touch of Marmite wasn't unheard of.

"You're thinking about food," Sherlock said, proving once and for all that his genius brain was overflowing and taking up space in others', as John's beautiful, bronze crumpets became soaked in blood that was dripping from something distasteful. "Crumpets, to be precise."

"You're thinking of blood dripping onto a porous surface," John said, absently. The crumpet fantasy was crumbling before his eyes, leaving behind only a blood soaked plate and interesting coagulation patterns.

"How so?" Sherlock asked, curiosity doubling up as confirmation, and John sighed. The curiosity was genuine, gleeful and unrestrained, bordering on hysteria, which meant that waving the question aside now would merely send it hurtling into a wall, whereupon it would bounce and return, tenfold. Sherlock hated his mysteries unsolved.

"It's four o'clock, teatime, it is cold, therefore I am thinking about warm food. I favour crumpets, therefore you think of crumpets. Your latest experiments all involved blood coagulation, so far on a tile, my sweater, a piece of wood and a bit of carpet. Plenty of accidents happen in the kitchen, testing patterns on food is only sensible, God help me."

Sherlock barely moved. John sighed, again. "I don't think I need to elaborate on the dripping, do I?"

Five feet above the ground a lone hand swayed gently in the wind. On its fingers the blood was darkening, and if John were any judge, there would be no more than three to five drops before it became too dense to fall.

The corpse quivered in the gentle breeze. It was sparkling in the harsh, white lights of the police lamps. Her face was hidden by a mass of platinum-blonde hair and her dress was rumpled, which only magnified the effect, as the light picked out the edges of the fabric, every sequin, every fold. She spun above the cobbles like a grotesque parody of a butterfly, caught in the act of emerging from its cocoon.

"I always said the freak was contagious," Sergeant Donovan said to Lestrade, low enough for the whole street, full of coppers, to pick up.

"You said," he agreed, wearily waving at Anderson to shut up before he began. "Gentlemen, the crime, if you will."

"Very well," Sherlock said and proceeded to outline the details of the victim's not so private life, including her apparent preference for tall, ginger men. John noted the lone hair on her shoulder and rolled his eyes at the explanation - Sherlock could be such a git at times - but didn't speak.

Challenging Sherlock was risky at this point. Whatever the experiment in the living room yielded had made him tetchy and irritable, and that was a bad state for Sherlock to be in. Bad for other people, that was. So John did the best he could, running interference on the detective's behalf, stepping in to chat up Anderson before he could have his head bitten off, while Sherlock dashed back and forth, pausing now and then, tilting his head, sniffing at the corpse's collar and some random piece of fluff that had found its way into her hair.

John could swear Sherlock was half-squirrel. Perhaps somewhere underneath the coat there was a fluffy grey tail, he thought and snickered. That would explain a lot, though John would prefer not to have to have that discussion with Mummy.

"John," Sherlock said, uncomfortably close to John's ear.

"What?"

"Cause of death?"

John blinked. She was dreadfully pale, not at all unlike a corpse, but... "I would say bled to death, except…"

"Except, of course, there is no blood. Splendid. We can go now."

"Done already?"

"Of course."

"Sherlock," Lestrade said, rolling his eyes. "Would you deign to share your insights, before you flutter off?"

"Flutter off?" Sherlock repeated, putting enough stress on both words to depress the ground underneath his feet. Somewhere in the background Anderson and Donovan snickered.

"Nevermind. Who did it?"

"Her client."

"Well, that narrows it down. Anything more specific?"

"I'm going to need to see the body," Sherlock said.

"Sure, soon as we get her down. I'll give you a call." Lestrade wore the long-suffering look of a man suffering a hideous injustice, but Sherlock was already striding out of alley, pulling John behind him with the force of his personality.

"So, a second Christmas and it's only April. You must be ecstatic."

Sherlock paused to look at John. "Why?"

"I'd assumed that this is the work of a serial killer." John considered the obvious, but dismissed it, offhand. Moriarty was a genius but he made sure he inflicted the maximum amount of pain possible, and that was best achieved before bodies became corpses.

"I must be a dreadful influence," Sherlock said. "You almost seem excited."

"So, is it?"

"I'm not sure."

"How so?"

"Obviously, this had been done by someone proficient at killing. This was no accident, and she didn't see it coming. Why though? She had very little money on her and her handbag wasn't far from the scene." Sherlock paused for effect and held the pause, still drawing breath.

John took pity after a few moments, when Sherlock looked like he might be about to explode. "How do you figure?" he asked innocently, listening to Sherlock's relieved, rapid-fire speech, full of words such as "indentation", "spatter", "obviously" and, oddly enough, "hair gel".

"I expect he asked her out, so she locked up the salon and followed. There's a pub near by, best reached through this alley."

"Hang on, salon?"

"Hairdressing, yes."

"I thought she was a prostitute."

"Clearly, you haven't spent much time with women."

"Not prostitutes, no. Have you?"

"Have you the barest inkling how interconnected the sex industry and the criminal world are?"

"That doesn't answer my question." John hoped he was imagining this, but he was a damn doctor and he could recognise a blush when he saw one. "How much time have you spent in the company of prostitutes?"

Sherlock was silent for a long while. "You don't really want to know."

"No probably not." John shook his head. "What now?"

"I need to examine the body in the morgue. Cause of death isn't immediately apparent."

"They have perfectly good pathologists on payroll."

"Ah, pathologists," Sherlock said, his tone assigning them the position on his scale of respect somewhere between hairdressers (performing a necessary service), but well below prostitutes (a valuable source of information). This would put them on the level of detective inspectors, John supposed, or thereabouts.

"So that young woman you had in our flat today was…?" John asked before he could think about it too hard. Sherlock had no trouble whatsoever walking into everybody else's private lives.

"What woman?"

"Strange, I don't recall any head trauma."

"Really, John, if you so desire to be cryptic, you need to start making some kind of sense. Otherwise what you are spouting is gibberish."

John rolled his eyes. "I was asking if she was a prostitute."

"It."

"It what?"

"It wasn't a woman, therefore the feminine pronoun is unnecessary."

John blanched. He wasn't in a hurry to forget the sight - it was a woman, certainly. She was too petite to have ever had been a man, for starters, and even if he was wrong there, John was quite certain that it was quite impossible for plastic surgeons to adjust the shoulder-width-to-head ratio. Not unless his knowledge of the medical profession was grossly out of date, that was.

"What do you mean 'it'?" he said, carefully, because while he suspected Sherlock of a great many crimes against human sensibility, denying someone the right to be identified grammatically as a person was not one of them.

"It was a demon," Sherlock said. "Sichuan?"

"Yes, do we have that much time?" Then, "Hang on, what do you mean it was a demon?"

"There's a splendid Sichuan place nearby."

"What, you're eating now?"

"Don't be absurd."

"Of course, what was I thinking?" John followed in Sherlock's brisk footsteps, all the while wondering what course of action he should now take. He liked to think he'd become well versed in Sherlock-speak, a necessity when tagging along someone who viewed human feelings as irrelevant. Sherlock had been sincere when he spoke of demons, and John wondered how much worse it was than the end Sergeant Donovan prophesied for him.

For Sherlock it would have been the worst possible outcome, John knew, being denied the one thing he truly appreciated. Being declared insane would have been the ultimate insult.

"I'm not insane," Sherlock said without looking back.

John resolved not to breathe a word, not until the delusions became a threat.

"I appreciate the sentiment, John, but I am perfectly sane. You can trust me on this."

And they were back to the regularly scheduled programme of mind reading. "Demons don't exist, Sherlock."

"Wrong. Ah, here we are." The detective held open the door to a tiny restaurant. John caught the whiff of pork in sesame sauce and ginger. "Good evening. We'll have the pork and egg-fried rice, quickly please."

The waiter disappeared before John had the chance to open his mouth, but that was hardly unusual.

"So, demons," John started, wondering how soon he could work in a tentative question about any other disturbing phenomena. "How do you know they exist?"

Sherlock stared at him. The look went on so long that John started fidgeting uncomfortably. "I had a brain tumour," Sherlock said eventually, placing his long finger against his forehead. "Right here. Inoperable, they said."

"Medicine is evolving," John managed to stammer out through the terror. "Just because it's too difficult to extract now, it may not be so in a couple of years."

"It's not an issue anymore."

"Sherlock, for God's sake, you cannot be so cavalier with your life!"

"I said 'had', John. It's not there any more."

"Oh. So it was operable?"

"It wasn't." Sherlock smirked. "There was a doctor who offered to try, but the risks he proposed were preposterous."

"Sherlock, for a brain tumour risks are, by necessity, acceptable."

"Are they?" Sherlock glared, John hadn't seen him this emotional since the last episode of boredom. "This is my brain, John. Anything else, I wouldn't have cared. Take a lung, or a leg, I couldn't care less. But my brain, John, a tumour in the frontal lobe."

"You are more than a brain, Sherlock," John hissed.

"Ah, details." Sherlock toyed with a saltshaker as the food arrived. "Bodies are overrated."

"So what happened? A remission?"

"I made a deal with a demon," Sherlock said calmly.

"I'm sorry, could you please say that again? I think I might have misheard."

"I made a deal with a demon."

John counted to ten. "You are aware demons do not exist, aren't you?"

"That is a common logical fallacy. Just because you have seen no conclusive proof of something's existence, doesn't mean it cannot possibly be out there."

"You know, when I pictured us having this argument, I used the exact same words. I should have known it would end up being the other way around."

"You plan our arguments?" Sherlock asked raising a brow in such a comical fashion John had to laugh.

"I assumed it would have to happen, sooner or later. Just like it did with the solar system."

"Ah, the solar system. Why is that so important to you? We live on a giant rock, what does it really matter which way it turns. No practical use."

"Whereas demons have enormous practical use." John chewed in silence for a while. "What would you offer a demon, anyway? For a little bit of practical surgery?"

"They are obsessed with souls," Sherlock said, offhandedly, already engrossed in the mannerisms of the restaurant's other patrons, while John nearly choked on a piece of boiled Chinese leaf.

"iYou'd sell your soul?/i" he said, incredulous.

Sherlock turned to him, confused. "You deny that demons exist, yet you get so offended at the mention of a purely philosophical entity, which is only quantifiable as electrical impulses? You might as well be offended that the computers don't get burials."

"Sherlock…" John started and found he had no words. "It is your soul. I mean, I don't believe in demons, but you are talking about your soul."

"Repeating the word doesn't really prove it's anything but the firing of synapses."

"Oh, and demons are more than the figment of imagination, are they? How is that you believe in demons, anyway?"

"I have proof, John." Sherlock smiled, and for a second John really, really could believe in all manners of supernatural creatures. "I have x-rays, and I have the MRI scans of my brain, taken within a single week. On one there is a tumour, on the others it is gone, as if it was never there. None of those so-called doctors could offer a satisfying explanation."

"Spontaneous remissions have been known to happen," John said, defending his profession as best he could. He imagined Don Quixote approached windmills with similar zeal.

"Yes," Sherlock said in the voice of a man who had studied every available case that claimed as much. "Not in this case." He looked at the blank wallpaper, no doubt reading the establishment's history from its texture.

"You are surprisingly okay with that," John said after a minute. He wondered how that could be, when most of Sherlock's life had been built on a foundation of logic and demons couldn't possibly fit into that picture easily.

Sherlock, as though sensing this train of thought, gave John a long look. "I'm not pleased by the whole affair, if that's what you mean. I found the experience distasteful and thoroughly unsettling."

John knew that tone of voice. It was in use often, when Sherlock spoke of the weather. Like it was a necessary evil that he would gladly dispense of, even though he was aware it had its uses.

"Still, don't you think it's unwise-"

"They have excellent desserts, I'm told."

Ah yes, debating with Sherlock. John suspected he might well find himself a cosy spot on the roof and shoot his gun at the moon. He ate his meal in silence, instead, at least up until Sherlock's phone beeped and the meal was interrupted, as countless others before had been, by the joyous exclamation of "Come, John, there is a dead body waiting for us."

John sighed, gathered up his things, looked around for the waiter to pay and was instead ushered out into the street. The joy of going out to eat with Sherlock was that you never had to pay for another meal in your life. John felt bad about it, most of the time. If he wasn't half-broke, he'd insist on paying every now and then, but his stomach often complained louder than his pride.

This was the first time since the explosion that John had seen Molly. He wasn't sure about Sherlock, but judging by Molly's reaction his previous appearance couldn't have been a well-remembered one. John wondered if she was still waiting for Jim to call. He hoped not.

"Interesting…" Sherlock said as Molly opened the door to the mortuary and fled the room without looking back.

"Be quick about it," Lestrade said.

John grabbed a pair of surgical gloves from the shelf. Now that the unfortunate hairdresser had been unwrapped, so to speak, cause of death was more than evident. There were two puncture marks on her throat, approximately quarter of an inch in diameter, one on either side of her neck.

"Looks like she was bled to death," John said examining the wounds. "The wounds were made while she was hanging upside down and then something, probably a rubber tube, was inserted to catch the blood."

"Excellent," Sherlock said.

"Horrible, Sherlock, not excellent."

"For her, yes. We are rather more lucky."

"Honestly, why do I even bother," John muttered to himself. "These are very clean, she was either drugged or too exhausted to fight," he added. "It was done with much care, too. Antiseptic was involved."

"She was drugged," Sherlock said firmly. "A cloth soaked in chloroform was pressed against her mouth."

"Chloroform?"

"Notice the smudges in her make-up around the mouth. Definitely a wet cloth. Chloroform is relatively easy to come by, therefore an obvious assumption."

"How about something useful?" Lestrade said. "We are on the clock here, and I have a family to inform."

"Her killer was a man, over six feet tall, approximately two hundred pounds. Menial job, though highly paid. Not a hitman though, too emotional, but comfortable with death. This has all the markings of a first kill, so a new face." Sherlock slapped his palms together, like an excited schoolgirl. "A new killer, here in London!"

"I try to block him out when he gets like that," John told Lestrade, who'd sent him a look that offered protective custody, no questions asked. "So far it's working."

"Is it?"

"That's what I tell myself every morning."

Lestrade looked at his phone. "I need to go. They just found her family. Call me as soon as you get something."

Sherlock barely noticed Lestrade leaving. The hairdresser's toes were, apparently, a wealth of information as to the nature of the crime. "Something is strange," he said eventually.

"Aside from the fact that there is a dead woman on the slab, you mean?"

"No, that's normal. What is strange is there seems to be no motive."

"Do you see dead people?"

"This is a morgue, John."

"Forget it." John folded his arms. "How would you even know if there was a motive?"

Sherlock straightened. "People are boring, predictable, every last one. There are patterns and there is cause, there is emotion and it stays." He whirled in place. "Something is wrong with this picture, don't you see?"

John raised a brow.

"Don't be pedestrian. Why was she killed? It wasn't for the money in her purse, clearly. She was a pleasant, non-threatening girl, prone to sequins she didn't fully like, which indicates easily swayed, which in turn suggests a crowd of friends she wants to impress. She's so easily lead that she wouldn't have had many enemies, certainly no one impressive enough."

"Impressive enough? Sherlock, you are starting to worry me."

"Starting?" Sherlock paused in the middle of his "I have a case!" tap dance and stared into the distance. "John, if I ever stopped worrying you, you would be frightfully bored."

"No danger of that happening, not when there's a dead body around, or parts of one. So why was she killed?"

"That's the question, isn't it?"

"Was she a random bystander then? Is this like Moriarty? Is this Moriarty?"

"Doubtful. There was an explosion, if you recall."

"Yes, I was there. Since I'm standing here, we can assume it wasn't half as bad as it looked."

"I'm not so sure."

"So why can't this be Moriarty?"

"Because it would be boring. It is boring. Doing the same thing twice is boring. He couldn't bear it. Repetition, ha! As though there weren't a hundred ways to achieve that, a hundred different, interesting crimes to commit!"

"It's a wonder you are still breathing," John said, though his throat had to be persuaded. Sherlock wasn't there, wasn't looking at the dead hairdresser, wasn't concerned with the whys and wherefores behind her death. He was back at the pool, watching Moriarty tick.

"It gets unbearable, now and then." Sherlock raised the dead woman's arm to inspect her fingernails.

"Then stop."

John hiccupped. This sometimes happened when he tried to inhale and exhale at the same time. "What did you say?" he and Sherlock said in unison, then looked at one another and said, "What?"

The dead woman sat up, hindered by irigor mortis/i. John winced at the cracking of her joints. "Sherlock Holmes…" she said, her sallow face tilting towards the detective. "Boo."


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

"What is going on?" John asked, sounding extremely reasonable to his own ears. He was factoring in the fact that a corpse had just spoken and if to an impartial observer there was a hint of hysteria in his voice, well, it couldn't be helped. "Sherlock?"

"It is not my fault."

"Bullshit."

"How the world spins," said the dead woman. "Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear."

"Sherlock," John said. "I would like to know what are you putting in our food cupboards."

"Food, obviously." Sherlock's gaze never strayed from the corpse, though there was a moment in which he seemed to reconsider his previous statement. "Mostly."

"Any hallucinogens?"

"Don't be absurd. Even Anderson would find those."

The corpse watched and waited, still as a statue. "You have forgotten," she said. The words came out malformed, hindered by the stiffness of her facial muscles. "Everything has its value."

Sherlock didn't move. "What have I forgotten?" he asked, finally convincing John that he was hallucinating. He'd suspect Sherlock of just about anything, but being completely calm when talking to a corpse, that was new.

"Nothing is for free. You called. We answered."

"I have no idea what you mean," Sherlock said. His hands were shaking and suddenly John felt a lot less certain. Sherlock saying the unthinkable wasn't far-fetched. He wasn't keen on lying, but he wasn't untruthful either. However, the delicate quivering of his fingers, that would have been hard to fake.

"I am prepared to offer punishment."

"Are you?"

"You have signed your name, Sherlock Holmes, in blood. There are no limits to what can I do to you." She cocked her head, tearing a ligament in the process. "How would you like to drown in your own blood?"

Sherlock coughed, delicately at first, as though he was trying to get someone's attention, but within moments the coughing escalated. John could swear he could hear tissue tearing and, as if to support that theory, there was blood on Sherlock's mouth, spatters of it on the floor. He couldn't breathe, John realised, when Sherlock staggered into him, gasping for air.

"Stop it!"

"Payment, Sherlock Holmes," she said, and then the coughing stopped, Sherlock straightened as if nothing happened, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and the corpse grinned. "Let this one go."

"No."

"You shall," said the corpse. Her words slurred as though she was falling asleep. "Let this one go, or you will regret it."

She stilled on the slab, the only clue to the fact that she'd only just sat up and spoken was the haphazard way her hair was arranged, and in the arm that now rested across her naked belly.

"Sherlock," John said. "Did that just happen? Really?"

The great genius detective, who, if the day proved to be real after all, had just been revealed as the biggest moron since the original Darwin Award recipient, was silent. He was still silent when Molly walked back in and he remained silent when John stammered excuses to Lestrade. He said nothing on the way home, either. In the end John had to manually relieve him of his coat and push him on the sofa, else he ran the risk of walking out the kitchen with two hot cups of tea and running into a shell-shocked Sherlock standing in the middle of the room.

"I don't see why I'm the one making tea. Arguably I had more of a shock today. I'm still not fully convinced it happened, mind."

"It happened," Sherlock said. "It is a problem."

"You think?" John set aside his cup. "So, if it is real, may I say a few words?"

"By all means, your insight is sometimes appreciated."

"Oh good." John sat back in his chair, took a deep breath, then stood up and started yelling. "What the fuck where you thinking? You strut everywhere showing everyone just how smart you are, and here we are, pondering the biggest fucking lunacy known to man! And then some!

"Did someone drop you on your head as a child? Did Mycroft hit you repeatedly with that umbrella of his, until you stopped moving? Did you lick the lead paint on your cot? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Are you finished?"

John deflated. "Not quite, no, but punching you at this angle would be difficult." Not to mention a decent punch would require wedging himself between the couch and the coffee table.

"Sit down, John."

"Sherlock, what the hell were you thinking? What was going through your head the moment you decided that signing off your eternal soul to a demon was a good idea?"

Sherlock, having already turned the page, and the subsequent five, awarded him a puzzled glance. "You seem to feel very strongly about this."

"Great job, Sherlock, for a minute there I was afraid your powers of deduction were waning, what with all the demons and corpses." John sat down heavily. "For God's sake. This is why people read things other than pathology reports, so that they know that some abstract things are bloody stupid. Dealing with demons is bloody stupid."

"It worked for Faust."

"He died, Sherlock. He died unhappy and, far as I recall, violently."

"Everybody dies. He got the life he wanted, and anyway he squandered the gifts given on trifles."

"What gifts? He made a deal with the devil- Wait, Faust?" Somehow, this was more of a shock than the animated corpse. Either that, or John was projecting his shock onto lesser subjects.

"I did research, obviously."

"I see. And in the course of this research it didn't even occur to you, it might be a bad idea?"

"The risks seemed reasonable."

"One of these days, Sherlock, you will cross the line, and then I'll have to kill you, I hope you realise that."

Sherlock raised a brow and the look he awarded John could only be described as impish. "I seem to have made a pact with the devil, and yet we're both still here, John. Do you realise that?"

"Don't get cocky. It might be the way you squeeze toothpaste, you never know. Can't stand people who squeeze it wrong."

"You're babbling."

"You did make a deal with the devil, as you said. I'm surprised you aren't."

"I've had ten years to get used to it. Oh, and it's towards the top."

"What?"

"The toothpaste. It seems to be of some importance to you."

"Of course, keeps me up at night." The silence weighed heavily on him. Sherlock wasn't letting this go, he could tell by the way he was breathing. "What do you plan on doing?"

"What do I plan on doing with what?"

"You aren't going to just sit there and do nothing."

Sherlock flopped onto the sofa and considered the ceiling. "No."

"Is there anything I can say that would persuade you not to do anything?"

Sherlock allowed himself a smirk. "What can you do, John, short of shooting me?"

"I could tell Mycroft."

"I imagine that would go over very well. 'Hi Mycroft, Sherlock has sold his soul to the devil, do you know how we could get it back?'"

"I don't sound like that. Anyway, I could…" John considered. "I could always tell them you had a relapse and it's in your best interest to keep you isolated."

"Interesting…" Sherlock sat up, leaned towards John, interlacing his fingers and resting his chin atop of them. "So you propose to lie in such a way as to have me declared incapable of making medical decisions, because I can't imagine myself voluntarily submitting to a hospital stay. Furthermore, you propose that I should be kept in such an institution against my will, a rather problematic idea at the best of times. Provided you had Mycroft on your side, all you need to ensure is that I don't escape. Which means that you would have to have me restrained." Sherlock tapped his forefingers, intent and focused. John could bet his mind was running detailed scenarios. "I am, of course, adept at escaping various confinements, certainly anything most institutions would have on hand. Which leaves restraint and constant supervision, which would be costly, inefficient, and inadvisable, as you cannot prove I am in fact a danger to myself and others around me.

"So it turns out that the only viable option is sedation. Sedating a patient with a history of substance abuse is inadvisable, at best. So tell me, John, what is your plan?"

"I could always call your mother," John said, relishing - for precisely fifteen seconds - the look of surprise and sheer panic on Sherlock's face.

"You wouldn't."

"Try me."

"Of course you wouldn't. You don't have the number. It's classified."

"I know who to ask."

"Mycroft wouldn't give it to you."

"Do you want to bet?"

Sherlock didn't. John didn't need the verbal admission - which he didn't get - to know as much. Mycroft might be insane, enigmatic and violently protective of his family, the latter of which was, in this case, all he needed to be. John bet he could be having tea with Sherlock's mother before he could finish saying: "Mycroft, your brother is in over his head, I fear he might do something incredibly stupid, unless we try some emotional blackmail."

"I'm going to bed. If you figure something out, let me know."

He wasn't really surprised when nothing was said.

John knew he shouldn't be surprised even when two days passed and Sherlock was nowhere to be found, or, to be precise, nowhere he cared to look. There was, at any given time, a handful of places he might try looking, but as many of those would require delving into the shadier areas of London, John tended to pretend nothing was wrong, choosing instead to stand guard by the phone, in case Sherlock managed to get himself locked in another epic battle of synchronised pill-swallowing.

John was a patient man, but standing idly by why the action happened to someone else, that was almost too much to bear. His sent box was filling rapidly the longer Sherlock's absence progressed, though he was somewhat mollified when the very occasional "Stop nagging. Busy. SH" text would come through. He'd abandon his vigil for an hour, read, then go right back to watching the phone.

On the evening of the third day John was sitting on the sofa, listening to the unnerving beating of the rain against the streets and rooftops, his hands folded in his lap, his gaze trained on his bloody mobile. It'd been twelve hours since Sherlock's last text, and if it wasn't for the fact that he had no bloody clue where to start, he would have been on his trail already.

He prayed Mycroft wouldn't call. Dealing with him at the best of times was problematic, dealing with him when Sherlock was missing, presumed in Hell, well, John would much rather never have that conversation at all.

"Oh, never mind, he's a grown man," John said out loud, acutely aware that he was talking to an empty room, an early sign of mental problems, and that he didn't fully believe what he was saying. Sherlock needed a bloody babysitter, needed one like he needed the air to breathe.

Still, he was sitting in an apartment whose defining feature was the lack of Sherlock. John was bored. After catching himself in the act of checking his phone for the seventh time in ten minutes, he got up and walked out the door, with the intention of visiting a pub, then it occurred to him that being alone and drunk wouldn't be the greatest idea, so he called Sarah.

"John, isn't this a surprise."

"Would you fancy some dinner?" he asked, mentally cataloguing the amount of trouble Sherlock could be in by now. He stopped when he reached the Apocalypse, although of course he couldn't rule that out.

"Now? I suppose, yes. Where?"

Eight p.m. found John at the window table at Angelo's, rolling his eyes at the owner's concerned inquiries as to Sherlock's health and whereabouts. Sarah's arrival cut the interrogation short, thankfully.

"How are you doing?" Sarah asked, shaking rainwater off her coat. "This is such a nice place. I don't think I have been here before."

"Sherlock showed it to me," John said, studying the menu.

"I see." Sarah consulted the waiter, ordered the fettuccine Alfredo and John tried to relax. It was so comfortable, talking to someone who didn't intersperse their conversation with remarks about the other patrons' private lives. John felt the stress of the past few days gradually dissipate, drowned in a bottle of good wine and a plate of pasta, helped along by Sarah's kind voice.

"Sherlock called," she said as she finished her fettuccine.

John nearly shot out of his chair. "What? When?" His phone didn't beep, there was no indication of any calls of messages. Would he call Sarah? Of course he would, this was Sherlock. "What did he say?"

"Nothing. I just said that to get your attention." Sarah smiled behind her glass of wine.

"Wait, I wasn't- I didn't mean to! It's just that Sherlock is in a lot of trouble right now."

"So I gather."

"I'm sorry," John tried again. Stupid Sherlock. He was disrupting his dates even when he wasn't there.

"Don't be. It's really sweet," Sarah said with a laugh and John narrowly avoided breaking his nose against his plate.

It was lucky, in a way, that in that moment his phone rang. John was grateful for the excuse to look away without looking like he was about to die from embarrassment.

"John," he heard, distantly.

"Sherlock? What the hell, where are you?"

"Tow… idge. 'Urry."

John stared at the phone in surprise. Either Sherlock really wanted to send a text, or he was in serious trouble. He might as well toss a coin, it could be either. Could be both, come to think of it.

"I'm really, really sorry," he said, signalling the waiter. "I'll make it up to you."

"Sure," she said, without the spark of genuine interest, and John would have bemoaned the missed opportunity (or string thereof), had he not been halfway out the door already. "Be careful!"

"I'll try," John said, as though it was humanly possible. He hailed a cab, yelling at the driver to go before he had even braked to a proper stop. "Tower Bridge, fast."

"Like I haven't heard that one before," the cabbie muttered, but stepped on it. An astonishing half an hour later John was stumbling onto the pavement, looking around wildly, and there, in the distance, was Sherlock, standing on the railing.

John's cane was a distant memory by now, but even so, he wasn't an athlete, so it was a pleasure to confirm that, provided adequate glandular stimulation, he was capable of a great turn of speed.

Even so, he was almost too late. When his brain finally switched off automatic and allowed John full control again, he was hanging on the railing, with the cold stone digging into his stomach, glaring at a very peeved Sherlock Holmes, who was dangling above the Thames, held in place only by John's vice-like grip on his ankle.

"Must you always ruin my experiments?" Sherlock asked.

"Only when they're particularly dumb." John waited for a beat, scrabbling for purchase on the slippery pavement, but Sherlock made no move in either direction, save for the gentle swaying in the wind. Upside-down he looked like a giant, resting bat. "Any time you want to start climbing back is fine by me."

"I have no intention of climbing back."

"Then you'll be pulled back. I don't really care."

Sherlock cocked his head. "Really, John, must we do this now?"

"Why, are you busy?"

"I was trying to jump off the bridge. What are you doing here, weren't you on a date with Sarah?" Sherlock pronounced "date" as thought it meant "colossal waste of time".

"How did you…? Never mind. Come back up here, and we'll talk."

"No." Sherlock crossed his arms.

"For God's sake! Suicide solves nothing!"

"Suicide? Oh, of course. That explains quite a bit." Sherlock wiggled and John only narrowly managed to hold on to his leg.

He had the vaguest sense that they were attracting a crowd of depressingly passive onlookers.

"Let go, John," Sherlock said.

"No."

"Would it make you feel better if I said I wasn't trying to commit suicide?"

"At this point, no. Because I wouldn't believe you."

"Have I ever lied to you?"

"You have said things the whole world, myself included, interprets differently than you. Also, my shoulder really hurts."

"My sympathies."

"So what were you doing, if you weren't trying to commit suicide?"

"I was going to Hell."

"Aren't we all," John said with a weary sigh then he registered the subtle capital letter Sherlock sneaked into his reply. "When you say Hell, do you mean the actual place? Fire and brimstone, and wailing and gnashing of teeth?"

"I've always found that depiction unfairly one-sided. There are more concepts of Hell, John, than just the one they teach at Sunday school."

John's shoulder was going numb. If someone didn't get off their arse soon, however unlikely it seemed in the pouring rain, Sherlock was going to have a very close and personal meeting with the River Thames.

"Why are you in such a hurry, then?"

"I like to deal with problems as they present themselves."

"No, you don't. You don't do laundry until your bedroom is overflowing."

"Ah, laundry," Sherlock said, dismissing the whole notion of dirty clothes as unworthy of attention of such an intellect as his.

"Sherlock!"

"I need to go to Hell, John."

"And it absolutely couldn't wait until some madman with a gun decided to off you in a back alley? You had to speed up the process by jumping off a bridge?" Breath was increasingly harder to come by. John was beginning to see dark circles fly across his field of vision.

"What use would be going to Hell after I'm dead?" Sherlock asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Much as I'm enjoying the conversation, could we perhaps continue somewhere else, over tea? It's raining."

"A storm is upon us and it is the night of a full moon," Sherlock said, consulting his watch. With his free leg he was kicking at the construction. "I really would like you to let me go now. These windows of opportunity are quite narrow and the next one isn't for another three to seven months, at best."

"I'm sorry, did you expect me to show up and cheer as you jumped?"

"Of course not. It is in your nature to save people, no matter how misguided the attempt might prove to be."

"Thankfully most people seem to appreciate that. Why did you call, then?" John asked, trying to figure out how much Sherlock could weigh and whether his strength alone would be enough to pull him over the railing.

"Call?"

"You called me," John said, already seeing the incomprehension on Sherlock's face. Before either of them could speak, however, something monumental happened, a kind of soundless, invisible roar of triumph and the strain on reality proved to be too great.

Three things happened simultaneously - lightning split the sky, accompanied by thunder, reaching all the way to the tumbled waters beneath Sherlock, who delivered a particularly vicious kick to the concrete railing, gaining enough momentum to push himself away from the structure and John, fighting with the screaming pain in his shoulder and back, slipped on the pavement.

The last thing he remembered was the sight of Sherlock, a great blob of black coat, close enough to touch, and the Thames consuming the world before his eyes, and then nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

PART TWO

CHAPTER FOUR

Sherlock was outdoors

- his hair was rustled by a faint breeze, unlikely to be the product of indoor air-conditioning as it lacked the recycled feel and the faint mechanical overtones, each breeze brought forth a wave of a different hue, not only of smell but of texture; airborne particles blew into his eyes -

on a sandy surface. Unfamiliar ground, unfamiliar texture. The ground was hard, suffocating and he lost his footing, knocking the wind out of him. Sherlock felt cracks in its surface at the tips of his fingers, devoid of shoots or any kind of vegetation, not surprising for a dry, featureless plane, empty, save for the layer of dust. It wasn't something he was likely to find anywhere in London at this time of year, least of all on the bottom, somewhere, of the Thames, whose bed was naught, but dirt and mud.

Sherlock opened his eyes. The noise in his head relegated to the back, quietly whirring its constant song in the background, ready to spring forth at a moment's notice. It'd been a long while since the act of waking up hadn't required a fight for the control of his senses; Sherlock had almost forgotten what it was like to wake and not wonder if this was the day he would be unable to fight his way from the bed of the ocean up to the surface, that he supposed this must be sanity, as it allowed interaction with the outside world on more-or-less even footing.

Somewhere to the left someone groaned and Sherlock sat up quickly. "John?"

"Tell me this is the bottom of the Thames," John said. He was slowly hoisting himself up, though doing so in a highly inefficient manner. "Or better yet, tell me you've been adding LSD to my tea. I'm not picky, either would make me happy."

"Neither," Sherlock said. John sounded fine - possibility of bruising was at about thirty-seven percent, going by the tone of his voice, stiff joints, words suggested persistent, if half-hearted, denial - but otherwise fine.

Something inside Sherlock loosened, until at long last his lungs could expand in a manner congruent with relaxed breathing patterns.

Excellent.

They were standing before a mountain unlike anything Sherlock had ever seen before. This wasn't much of a surprise - he wasn't one for travelling, and geology only interested him as far as various kinds of soil were concerned - but the more he looked at it, the more he was convinced that this structure shouldn't be upright at all. He was discovering he had a sense of gravity and this mountain violated it to the core. The complicated edifice of rock, sand and metal sprung up from the russet plain, balancing precariously over narrow passages into the darkened land beyond.

"I'm in Hell," John said, resigned.

"Yes, we are." Sherlock rubbed his hands with glee. "This is outstanding. Amazing. It shouldn't be possible, of course, but apparently when the conditions are just right - moon phases are of utmost importance, isn't this shocking, astronomy is finally of some practical use - there is the slightest possibility of creating a rift between dimensions!"

John was giving him the long look that Sherlock had long since associated with complete and utter bewilderment. "I have no idea what you just said."

"The door to Hell, John, can be opened, at irregular intervals, depending on the circumstances."

"So we are in Hell," John repeated, stupidly, as that fact was evident in their surroundings. Why did he insist on stating the obvious?

"You seem surprised."

"Yes, actually. Why aren't you?"

"Why should I be?"

"This isn't exactly a logical place to be. By all accounts you should be writhing on the ground moaning in existential pain."

This was why John was worthy of keeping. Most often he was just another drone, nearly blind and uninteresting, but every now and then he would spout something so intensely incomprehensible, something that - though he couldn't understand the precise meaning of it - touched Sherlock to the core. He couldn't help but be drawn towards the source of such inexplicable sensations. "Why?" he asked, fascinated.

"Doesn't that happen to people like you? When logic suddenly goes out the window? Far as I understand it, it should be tantamount to gravity going the other way."

Sherlock looked towards the yellowish sky, back at the mountain, which, though disturbing, failed to upturn his world view, then back at John. "Should it?"

"You tell me."

"Things are," Sherlock said, inching closer to test yet another theory. "There's no point in pretending otherwise. The best one can do is look at the facts and find a theory that encompasses them all."

"That was deep. How are we going to get out of here?"

"I expect there is some sort of trans-dimensional transportation."

"You expect?" John asked. Sherlock was standing no more than a foot away now. "What?"

"We are in Hell, John. I brought us to Hell, though admittedly your being here wasn't a part of the plan."

John gave him a long, pointed look, entirely empty of murderous intent. "Yes, and?"

Sherlock smiled smugly. "Nothing. Nothing at all." Curious, how broad John's limits seemed to be, if he was willing to suffer Hell and not lash out. Perhaps Sherlock ought to conduct some experiments in the field of oral hygiene and its emotional impact on cohabitants.

"What do we do?"

"I need to find my contract." Sherlock bent to examine the sand. It slipped between his fingers like flour, too fine to glitter in the sun that wasn't there. The rusty colour brought blood to mind, dried and washed out, and mixed with some unknown substance, to give it this utterly dull texture.

Sherlock was in his own personal chemical heaven.

"You are insane, did you know that?"

"It has been mentioned."

"How do you plan on finding this contract? Better still, what do you plan on doing with it?"

"Destruction by fire is recommended by most sources."

"I'm not even going to ask."

"Does your ignorance please you?"

"My sanity pleases me. I intend to hold on to it with both hands."

Sanity, as practised by most of the human race, was overrated, Sherlock told John, who responded by sticking the middle finger of his right hand up in his direction. It took Sherlock twenty-seven seconds to place the gesture in context. "That's rather rude."

"I'm not feeling too indulgent at the moment."

Fair enough, Sherlock thought.

"How big is Hell, anyway?"

"Sources disagree," Sherlock said, hoping for the line of thought to be dropped. Judging by the glare he was receiving, John wasn't falling for it.

"So your plan was to go to Hell, spend however long it takes to find a piece of paper and then burn it. Is that all?"

"Exactly."

"It didn't once cross your mind that Hell might be huge? By huge I, of course, mean mind-boggling, enormous, or even limitless?"

"Everything has limits. I found a tracking spell that ought to point the way."

"Thank God Sergeant Donovan isn't here. If she saw you using magic she might have shot you on the spot."

"Why?"

"Typically that is the first sign of insanity and in your case, insanity would culminate in a dead body in a back alley."

"Please, do you think I, even at the height of madness, would get myself killed?"

"I never said the body would be yours."

Sherlock didn't know what to say. It ought to be yet another jibe, caused by malice and the boring every day people not understanding, one that he could shrug off like the rain. It wasn't, somehow, and it had nothing to do with the comment itself, he'd heard far worse. It wasn't even that John had said it, because John had always been vocal on the subject of Sherlock being insane. He said it often, sometimes as a jibe, sometimes as a jibe aimed at himself, for playing along.

The problem here was the way John said it, as though this was natural progression, as though he expected such an outcome.

"Do you really think so?" he asked, cautiously.

John stopped. "You are capable of killing," he said, as astute as Sherlock was when making his observations. "I imagine that given the circumstances you might start re-evaluating the sanctity of life."

"I don't follow."

"Afterlife, Sherlock. If there's life after death, there's less to fear about dying, wouldn't you say?"

Sherlock considered. It hadn't occurred to him, no. Afterlife? He looked around the barren plain of Hell, on which nothing grew, and shuddered. "I imagine I'd kill not to come here," he said at last.

"I see. What did you envision happening, after your deal came due?"

Sherlock had to admit he envisioned nothing, an absence of being.

"Brilliant." John looked around, tapped his foot against the dirt, relaxed a fraction - hands perfectly steady, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, indicating no psychosomatic pain in the leg, excellent - and sighed. "Can we get a move on?"

"Pardon?"

"Can you do your magic trick and get us out of here?"

"I need to find the contract, first," Sherlock said.

"That's what I meant, obviously," John retorted, sounding peeved. "Can you do it now, or are we waiting for Hell to freeze over?"

Sherlock, in a state of minor panic, went through his mental copy of the book that outlined the terms and circumstances of the spell. John displayed surprise and even shock when confronted with the fact of Hell's physical existence, and yet he seemed to be more aware of its conditions than Sherlock was. It was troubling. "That doesn't seem to be necessary," he said eventually.

From the way John rolled his eyes, he inferred his earlier remark was supposed to be sarcastic.

Sherlock reached into his pockets, triumphant again, as it turned out the pockets and their contents had survived the journey unscathed. He withdrew a small silver bowl, a part of the set he'd borrowed from Mummy's cupboard all those years ago, and set it on the ground. With the tip of his knife he marked the four points to symbolise the four cardinal directions, though which those would be, in this place, he had no idea. Finally, he rolled up his sleeve and cut a shallow line across his forearm, so that the blood would drip into the bowl.

"Why's there a bandage on the inside of your elbow?" John asked. The hard edges to the words suggested wariness, building anger and irritation, with just a hint of worry.

"I needed blood," Sherlock explained, watching the little bowl intently. "For the summoning. The inside of the elbow is by far the easiest spot to draw large quantities of blood from, barring the neck, naturally, or the inside of the thigh. Factoring in haste, the elbow seemed like the obvious choice."

"Of course it would."

On the ground the etchings in the not-quite-sand moved onto the surface of the blood. Sherlock waited another couple of seconds and then picked the bowl up. He tilted it experimentally, but the etchings remained. More importantly, they swivelled around, to come to a stop pointing very definitely towards the mountain.

"Excellent." Sherlock swivelled around one more time, but the etchings stayed fixedly pointing at the mountain. "We have a working compass."

"Good," John said. "The sooner we get out of here, the better."

"Lighten up, John. This is an adventure, isn't it?"

"It feels wrong." The doctor shivered, as though a gust of cold wind had wormed its way down his back. It had to be psychosomatic, though, because the air did not move.

"Feels wrong?"

"I can't really explain it. I don't want to be here. We shouldn't be here in the first place."

"There're a great many places you shouldn't have been, and yet…" Sherlock started, but didn't get to finish, because John interrupted.

"It's different… wrong. The shapes are all wrong."

Perhaps he was wrong, too. Sherlock had hoped the excursion would cause John no great harm, that despite the horrendous mistake it was to even bring him along (through no fault of his own - John should have known better), he'd never assumed something like this might happen. John was losing his mind.

Sherlock found he was shivering, though it was, of course, illogical. There was no wind, and therefore, there could be no sudden changes in temperature.

"Let's go," he said curtly. John would have to survive.

The great mountain was smooth as glass, opaque and luminescent. Sherlock wondered if it could be organic in origin, as the glow seemed not unlike that of the amoebas found in bodies left to putrefy in southern waters. He had no time to spare for to study it, as John was at his worst, nipping all attempts to gain further knowledge in the bud.

"No time, Sherlock," he would say each and every time Sherlock would bend to collect a sample. His pockets grew heavy, all the same, as he would pinch little portions of dirt and deposit them in small plastic bags, as he brushed past the rocks.

It took them an hour and twenty-seven minutes to walk around the mountain. The soil beyond the mountain was reddish and dry, smooth to the touch and hard as concrete when hit. Sherlock felt like his neck didn't have enough muscles in it, as though he couldn't turn his head enough to take it all in. Still, he tried, until finally he stopped and laughed, throwing his hands in the air triumphantly.

"Why are you so happy?"

"Do you realise the implications, John?"

"I wonder if you do."

"There's twice as much to consider now. A sufficiently intelligent criminal could hop between worlds, though of course it's impossible without leaving traces behind - oh, how the work will flourish! Portals, or doors, according to my research have such ambience, if we're lucky, something interesting will turn up every day!"

"You know, Sherlock, please stop talking."

"What? Why?"

"Because one more word and I will punch you in the face."

"You really are upset by this," Sherlock said with a touch of wonder.

"Of course I'm bloody upset! You are casually hopping the train to Hell, like it's fun, like it's one of your experiments, and this is Hell! This is the beyond, this is where people come to suffer!"

"Ah," Sherlock said. That was a whole new angle to consider. How was it that it had escaped him in the first place? "This is the place people go when they die?"

"Hell is one of the places, yes."

"What happens here?"

John rolled his eyes. "I'd recommend Sunday School, but I expect all you'd do is make the children cry."

"That's not fair."

"You made that little boy in the shop cry."

"He was being irrational."

"He was being five years old."

"He was five years old."

"I know what I said."

"You said it wrongly."

"No, you just didn't understand it. He was behaving like a five year old, something, may I add, that happens to you all too often."

"That's ridiculous. I never cry."

"No, but you tend to be petulant and grumpy."

"I am not grumpy!"

"Tell that to Mrs Hudson's wall."

"What is so special about Sunday School?"

"You've never had any religious education?"

Sherlock dimly recalled a tall, stern woman, clad in black, who regaled them with a tale of a man convicted to a gruesome death after a preposterous trial with hardly any evidence material and no apparent crime. He said as much to John, who merely sighed and elaborated on the story.

"What did that accomplish?" Sherlock asked when John finished the tale with a vision not unlike what might be seen under the influence of strong hallucinogenic substances.

"Christianity, for one."

"That's Christianity?"

"There's more. I'm not certain about denominations and exact practices."

"That is astonishing. How does Hell factor into the story?"

"As far as I know, everybody who sins, or doesn't believe, comes here after death to be eternally tormented."

"I see." Sherlock paused in his steps. "Is there a point in going any further, then?"

"What?"

"I certainly don't believe. I don't see any point in wasting time retrieving the contract, if I still have to come back soon."

"After you die, Sherlock, hopefully in the distant future. And yes, there is a point."

"How?"

"You may not come back here."

"So there are loopholes, then?"

"I'm a doctor, not a priest."

"A priest would know, then?"

John laughed under his breath, clearly imagining something humorous, and just as Sherlock was about to ask what, he heard a distant cry. "Did you hear that?" He held up his hand, willing John to hold his breath.

There it was again.

"Ignore it," John said. He was stiff and his hand pressed against the small of his back, where he carried his gun. "Let's just go."

"It sounds like a child," Sherlock said.

"I don't care if it sounds like a nursery."

Sherlock didn't waste time arguing. He strode towards the source of the cries, already rubbing his hands in anticipation. A crying child reaching notes of this range indicated a particular level of distress, one well above physical discomfiture.

Somewhere behind him John was uttering curses, but the timbre and volume of his voice was consistent, meaning he was following.

They rounded a corner when a man-sized shape tore from it and galloped across the plain, kicking up a cloud of dust wherever it stepped. The cry sounded again, louder now. In Sherlock's mind a picture was forming - a girl, four to six years old, brought up to be posh, as this was a hiccuping kind of cry, more like a series of disjointed sobs, rather than an unrestrained wail.

It took them a couple more minutes to reach the source of the sound and it was a girl, indeed. She was clad in an expensive blue summer dress, stark against Hell's russet sand. "What happened?" Sherlock started to ask, even as John grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back forcefully.

"Help me," she said, mournfully, holding out her hand. Her legs started to unfold and John stepped between her and Sherlock.

- Sherlock saw blood, dripping down his hands and he knew that the blood was John's, and that the flesh he tasted was his heart, still beating -

Sherlock shook his head.

"Stay back," John warned, and Sherlock realised with some surprise that he was talking to the girl, not him, and wondered if that wasn't a mistake.

"Are you insane?"

"Are you?"

"It's a crying child, since when do you not care?"

"Since when do you care, I wonder?"

"Really, John," Sherlock started saying, but then something behind him shifted and John pushed him to the side. Sherlock hit the rock with his shoulder, which was statistically very likely to result in bruising and stiffness for the following ten to sixteen hours.

He braced himself against the rock, but when he turned to berate John for his paranoia, he saw the girl look up and grin at them, and her mouth kept on curving upwards until the top of her head fell back, revealing a maw full of razor sharp needle-like teeth. Her pudgy fingers lengthened, digging into the sand. Beneath the summer dress her body was deathly pale, as though there was no blood in its veins.

Sherlock stood there, stupefied, as the creature tore itself from the rock, brandishing something akin to a spear. It was still small, taller than a five-year-old girl, but shorter than John. Through its skin Sherlock could see ribs, a ribcage the shape of a cone, one fit for a bird rather than a human being. There were ridges along her spine, their tips poking through the material of her dress.

It lunged at John and Sherlock found himself - against all expectations - crying out.

iIt didn't make any sense!/i

John fell under the creature's weight - how odd, Sherlock thought, surely it couldn't weigh more than a hundred pounds, how could it, when its form was so slight - and both of them stilled. The smell of blood was in the air, thick and nauseating, the tang of iron clogging up the air as though it was a fog, hiding all that was there to see, hiding the world, hiding everything from Sherlock, calling to him in voices he didn't want to hear, and this, too, was new - Sherlock had never before felt nauseated by the smell of blood.

Something on the ground moved and Sherlock, still stupefied, heard a muffled curse, then a slightly more coherent, "How long are you going to sit there?"

It turned out to be another few seconds. He couldn't draw a breath, it seemed, certainly not enough to do anything constructive. "Sherlock!" John yelled and finally the great genius detective obliged, all but leaping across the few feet separating them and helping John to roll the carcass off.

"I want to know what the hell they eat, if they get so heavy," John said between breaths.

He looked horrible. A thick, dark substance stained his midsection and his hands, there was a tear in his jumper at the side and another where the creature's teeth had snagged as they rolled it off.

"Are you alright?" John asked, turning to Sherlock.

"What?"

"Are you alright?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You look like you're about to faint."

"Well. It's- it was a bit of a shock."

John opened his mouth, but whatever he had to say paled in comparison to what Sherlock's eyes and ears and nose and skin were telling him. The texture of the sand was all wrong. There were no pebbles and no rocks and yet something dug into his knees where he knelt, and it didn't disappear even when he stood. He choked on the air when he drew a deeper breath to steady his nerves, why, why would he choke, when the smell wasn't so much foul as it was weird. It smelt dead. Dead blood, decomposition rate of between one or two days, mixed with swamp water and the common i Escherichia coli/i bacteria after a twenty-hour cycle, feeding on the tissues. The sky, to which he had not paid attention, except he must have, because he looked now and he knew that it was all wrong, wrongwrongwrongwrong. The shade was wrong, the shape was wrong, the sound of its silence, the wind that didn't stir the dust, everything was iwrong/i!

High above there was a screech and a thing let go of the rock and sailed on the dead winds. It was shaped like a man, possibly, thought its bones were short and stocky, too heavy set to make flying possible, certainly in relation to the minuscule wings it had. They kept hearing its screeches until it was a dark spot on the horizon - the horizon curved the wrong way, brighter at the edges than it was in the centre, how could the world curve in such a way - too far to tell a wing apart from foot.

"Sherlock?" John asked, and Sherlock felt a tentative hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"It's wrong," he said, quietly. "It's all wrong."

"That's what I've been telling you."

"I know." Then, as an afterthought, "I'm sorry," he said. The words felt strange on his tongue.

"I know," John said. He tightened his hand reassuringly and then bent to pick up the spear that the creature dropped. "Let's hurry."


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Darkness started falling upon Hell. The sky filled with ash-coloured clouds, which obstructed whatever source of light shone upon the place.

The demons avoided them, which was fortunate. It took Sherlock a long time to notice though, even when they reached a more densely populated area, as all he could see were shapes and movement in the shadows. John seemed to be fairing better, shoving them both into corners that seemed untouched by the light of any kind, when something ventured too close. Sherlock wondered at this ability, but eventually he, too, had come to associate the feeling of utter and completely wrongness with a demon's presence.

- there would be bright light firing up in his brain, muttering in his ear, forcing thoughts to the forefront of his brain, dark, wrong thoughts, of blood and murder and hands dipped in the flowing red and how wrong and right it would be and how people died and suffered all the while and nothing ever lasted, except for Hell, the endless darkness and pain and now it was time to go again and wallow in the glorious suffering -

The realisation that the thoughts were not his own shook him momentarily.

"How did you know?" he asked John after a couple miles (and even of that - inconceivable! Simple math had failed - he wasn't sure).

"Know what, that trusting demons in Hell was a bad idea?" John asked, and from his tone Sherlock inferred this was a question he didn't expect to be answered.

"How did you know it was a demon?"

"It was wrong," John simply said. "How didn't you? You can spot an engineer by his thumbs."

"I don't know," Sherlock said after a while. "I- It looked like a child to me."

"That's weird."

"I think so, yes."

"What does that mean?"

Sherlock considered. There was a tone in John's voice that he'd (slowly) learned to recognise as humouring, as the voice of the skull as he'd termed it once. It was the voice John used when he wasn't as impressed as he should be and was just talking to keep Sherlock talking, in the hopes of keeping him from insulting anyone.

Sherlock welcomed it now.

"I think I've got the hang of it now," he said. "That one's a demon."

John looked to where Sherlock was pointing, at the half-elephant creature, with a toothed maw where its stomach should be. "Well-spotted, Sherlock, but that was obvious."

"You know what I mean!"

"Not really, no."

"I knew that was a demon just by it looking that way!"

"You know great many things just by looking at them and most of the time it is a lot more impressive. Forgive if I'm not clapping this one time." John whirled the spear as though it were a baton. "I know what you mean though. I assume it just feels like something's off, right?"

"It's like looking at one of those infernal Escher drawings."

"The what?"

"The stairs that lead nowhere." Sherlock shuddered. It was a minor thing, but his mind rebelled at the very thought. He couldn't help it, his eyes would trace the contours and his brain would produce schematics that didn't make sense.

John gave him a strange look. "I think so," he said cautiously.

"It's slightly better when there's none of them around."

"Can't argue with that." They were passing a wall built from human beings, and Sherlock knew, theoretically, that these couldn't be people, because people couldn't survive being nailed to one another for as long as the rusty colour of the blood underneath would indicate and yet still live, let alone have breath to scream in anguish.

He looked away.

"How much further?" John asked when the distance was great enough that the cries were just murmurs.

Sherlock consulted his compass. "It's very hard to give a precise reply." The blood seemed livelier now, still vividly red, as though freshly spilt, thought it must have been a few hours old, at least. "We could be halfway."

"Could be halfway?"

"Could be more than halfway."

"But could be less."

"That is intimated by 'could'."

"Glad we had that conversation. You are doing the shopping for at least a month for this, you realise."

Sherlock smirked. "Only a month? You are not a hard man to win over, John."

"And no experiments."

"No promises."

"That wasn't a request."

"It is vitally important to my work that I know how soon blood coagulates."

"Clearly. I am not sure why you need to know how soon microwaved eyeballs explode, as there seems to be so few crimes involving eyeballs, thank God, so I am forced to conclude that some of the experiments you do are for fun."

"Oh, so me having fun is unacceptable?"

"No, you ruining my fun with your fun is unacceptable."

"What fun, precisely, have I ruined with my eyeballs?"

"Every Sunday morning since we moved in?"

"How are Sunday mornings fun?" Sherlock asked, shocked, appalled and disgusted. "Nothing whatsoever happens on Sunday mornings. Not even a crime of passion! It's so hard to believe that there would be a time of day that makes a difference, that makes people forget their little misunderstandings and petty grievances, but there it is! A Sunday morning, when even thieves lay low. It is the prime spot in the week for complete and utter boredom!"

"Exactly." John propped the spear against his shoulder and looked behind. "I probably shouldn't have done that," he said, turning back quickly.

Sherlock looked back, too. There was a flayed body nailed to a tree, still twitching, which was unpleasant, but this was John. "Why?"

"We are in Hell."

"Yes?"

"Did the name Orpheus never cross your research?"

"No. Should it have?"

"I haven't been shoved out yet, so presumably no."

"How does that make sense?"

"Greek mythology, look it up."

"I seem to have left my library in my other coat."

"I can't be expected to pick up after you, can I?"

"Can't you?" Sherlock asked, cocking his head. John laughed.

"I'm going to end up as the crazy cat lady."

"You're not a woman, nor do you have an affinity for felines."

"Crazy cat bachelor then."

Sherlock let this one go. There was a small part of him that was wise to the workings of the average Joe and that part was yelling and screaming and waving its arms, telling him to ignore the statement, that he had not nearly enough data to unravel it. It was right, of course. These days it had a curiously John-like voice, probably because John had become Sherlock's most reliable source of information as far as the human population was concerned.

The landscape was changing as they pressed on. The mountain still loomed in the distance, an imposing mass that threatened to eclipse the sky if anyone looked at it too long. Sherlock had made it into a game: he'd walk backwards and stare and stare until his mind started building up the geometry of the plain into a maze, whose walls rose out of the ground to lock him in and bury him underneath the sands. He would whirl then and match his pace to John's, who would look at him oddly, but continue.

Sherlock would then spend some time watching John, the single thing in this bizarre world that still made sense, that still responded to logic and behaved as Sherlock expected it to. It was a relief.

Then he would turn again and watch the mountain in its space-warping glory.

Every now and then he would take the compass out of his pocket and shake it. The little arrow embedded in the liquid would quiver, sometimes even swivelling around the perimeter of the dish, but soon enough it would return to point in the direction they travelled.

They were getting closer. It seemed John's fears of an unlimited Hell were unfounded, after all. Every now and then Sherlock would pause, run several feet at a right angle to their chosen course and consult the compass - the longer they walked the more precise was the direction shown by the compass.

"It cannot be far now," he said. The difference was pronounced now; if there was any stock to be put by the spell, stock measured in the precise units of earth geography, their journey would soon be concluded.

"That is good news. How far?"

"It is difficult to be precise, but perhaps about a mile?"

"How is that not precise?"

"A mile is hardly a precise answer."

"It's precise enough." John took a deep breath. "What happens when we find your contract?"

"We take it back and burn it, I thought I'd already explained."

"We both know you haven't thought this through. Sherlock, a demon holds your contract. How were you planning on getting it from her?"

"From it."

"She seemed female."

"I don't think demons have gender."

"I think mythology students would disagree. Quit changing the subject."

"I'm not changing the subject."

"You are. A demon. How were you planning to persuade it to give you back your soul, for no apparent reason?"

"I figured it might come down to killing it."

John quieted. He did that sometimes when Sherlock said something perfectly innocent but from which John managed to infer some nefarious meaning. "How?"

"There's a number of ways to kill a demon, including as you have recently demonstrated, stabbing it. Should that fail, I've secured a weapon that is reputed to have done the job in the past."

"This weapon would be?"

"A bottle of so-called holy water."

"You didn't think to use that when that demon was trying to kill me?"

"You performed admirably on your own," Sherlock said, a little louder than necessary. The bone-clenching terror that claimed his body as the memory returned needed to be silenced by any means necessary.

"I took it by surprise."

"Nevertheless."

"This time they will be prepared."

"Perhaps."

"No perhaps about it. All of Hell knows we're here by now." John looked towards the valley. Among the jagged rocks, whose edges emitted some kind of phosphorescence, there was the shape of a castle, shooting into the inky blackness of the sky. It wasn't further than a mile off. This was their destination then. Interesting.

"That almost seems like a human structure, doesn't it?"

"If by that you mean it doesn't violate the laws of gravity like some other things around here, then yes, it does."

"That's not all." Sherlock narrowed his eyes. There was something offending about it, something he couldn't quite explain but had learned to associate with the presence of demons. "There's something almost familiar about it," he said after a moment. He couldn't explain it, couldn't pinpoint the source of the familiarity. He saw it, plain as day, saw it in the sloping roofs and the precise frames of the window; inside his head all the lines connected, forming a transparent structure that he could walk through, should he chose to, and examine the inside in detail. Perhaps if he had time he could discover what strange proportion had made this house so familiar, as he was equally certain he had never seen this particular building before.

John gave it a moment of consideration. "Strangely, I am not at all surprised. Shall we?"

"After you." Sherlock bowed gallantly, though his spine was protesting. It was as though the picture of wrongness that his mind constructed out of the data was starting to affect the rest of him, as though - and wasn't that a preposterous notion - his own body was trying to stop him from going. Sherlock often wondered why people wondered why he found his body useless.

John seemed to be experiencing similar problems. He walked slowly. His posture was becoming stiffer, something Sherlock had observed happening all through their journey so far. At this point he must have been so wound up every move was excruciatingly painful, yet he pressed on.

In fifteen minutes they were standing before the gates of the castle, alternating looks between them and each other. Neither wanted to touch them, partly out of fear, partly because the sense of wrongness was so pervasive, Sherlock was certain that if he touched anything with his naked palm the feeling would stick like hot wax and climb up his arm to engulf him whole into a burning cocoon.

"Shall we?" John asked.

"I don't think I want to," Sherlock said, surprising himself with sincerity. John offered him a tentative smile.

"Neither do I."

The knock was loud like the ringing of church bells. It echoed across the valley and returned tenfold, nearly knocking them off their feet and blowing the door open. "What a nice welcome!"

"At least the door is open now," Sherlock said.

Lighting hadn't been a priority for whoever designed the castle. There were candles, but they reflected only portions of the wall, very specific portions designed so as to expose exactly one item each. Those were of tremendous interest - a beating heart, on a shelf, frantic with effort to keep blood pumping through veins that were no longer there - and Sherlock would gladly have spent a few hours examining each one, had John not been pulling his sleeve all the while. Really, his presence was most unfortunate at this time.

"I think I see light over there," John said.

"There's light everywhere, else we wouldn't be able to see."

"Shut up," John said, from a few yards away. Sherlock straightened, alarmed.

"John!"

But he was already disappearing into the darkness, behind a brick wall, which appeared out of nowhere. Sherlock pounded on it, but there was no indication John was on the other side, no indication anyone was anywhere around.

"Close your eyes, think," Sherlock told himself, trying to force his body to stop breathing and listen. Human beings were noisy creatures. They breathed, they cursed, they walked and rustled, their hearts and mouths and clothes made noise. John was there, John had to be there, the wall was flimsy, he should hear John through the wall, even if there was just a faint, shuffling noise, he would hear.

But there was nothing.

He started walking then, with one hand on the wall, walking first then running. It had to end somewhere, had to turn and reveal a door, a portal, anything, any hole he could walk through and find John on the other side. Where was it?

He lost track of the way, though of course that was impossible, he always knew, always remembered, always counted the steps. He was never lost, not once. He wasn't lost when the swimming pool exploded around him, wasn't lost when he saw the path through the debris, when he was barely standing, held in place by a miracle, but he was standing there nonetheless, and he was stable just enough for him and John to stagger to relative safety.

He was lost now, and John wasn't there, and he was in Hell, where nothing made sense.

Just then the wall ended and Sherlock would have revelled in his triumph, ten minutes ago, had John been there to show off the find, but not now. At the far end of the room there was a bookcase and on it there was a scroll. He knew this was what he came here for, he couldn't explain it - was that how it felt to be slow and normal, knowing, as they sometimes did, obvious things and be unable to explain why? - but that, right there, was his contract. He could burn it and he'd be out, free of the pesky deal.

He hesitated. He should find John, first. This world was unpredictable. There was no telling what would happen when he burned it. Having John beside him would be safer, certainly. On the other hand, if he found John, he would lose time, and he risked- he couldn't even think what. Something could happen. Things changed in Hell, changed before his very eyes.

Sherlock unrolled the parchment on which his blood still shone, just as red as that night at the crossroads. He wondered at the quality of the material, at how it was possible to maintain the qualities of blood for so long, when it should have darkened to a near black before he even walked away from the demon.

"You are early," said a voice in the darkness. Sherlock jumped. There was no breath and no rustling to indicate human presence. "And you are szhtill alive… Izsh it to your liking?"

"Is what to my liking?" Sherlock asked. It was the same form that had visited him in their flat, the very same one he had dealt with all those years in the past, though shadows obscured half her face now.

"Thizsh castle. It wash made zshpecially for you."

"Indeed? I am impressed."

"It is cuzshtomary."

"Customary? How so?"

"You made a deal, so your presence is somewhat… zschelebrated."

"Why?"

"Not many people deal," the demon said coming closer. "Not many people call on ussh anymore."

"Your own fault for not advertising better. Where's John?"

"Within the cazshtle."

"Where?"

"I don't know. Let go of the contract."

"No." Sherlock delved into his pockets, coming up with a lighter that had seen better days, when it had been regularly used for its intended purpose. He'd swiped it from the locker right under Lestrade's nose; it had been a crucial piece of evidence in his first case as a quasi-official Scotland Yard consultant. The gas inside sloshed from side to side, but its flame was unwavering, brilliant in the stark darkness.

"You made a fair deal. You have no right to renegade on it."

"I won't be blackmailed," Sherlock said curtly. "It was fair, perhaps, but then you tried blackmailing me, and that will not be tolerated."

"Blackmail?" The demon laughed. The sound was odd, as though the air escaped her mouth in all the wrong places. She took another step forward and as the diffused light hit her face Sherlock could see why. Half her face was that of a beautiful woman, with high cheekbones and lush lips, but the other half, partly obscured by her dark hair, was naked bone, on which scraps of skin and muscle were still stretched. That she could talk and still be understood was a surprise, when half her mouth was a gaping maw of teeth and bone and sinew.

"It wazshn't blackmail," she said. "Merely another deal, a fair one, too."

"I will investigate what I chose." Sherlock tightened his fist around the parchment, feeling a sense of satisfaction as it crinkled in his grip. "No warnings will dissuade me."

"Perhapshz." The demon considered him. "You are not in your human world, though. The contract izsh rightfully mine, and I refuszhe to give it up."

"I'm holding it."

"Are you?" Sherlock started because the parchment was not in his hand anymore. Instead the demon was inspecting it as thought he'd never held it. "Thishzs Hell, mortal. The rulezsh you muzhst follow on Earth do not apply here." Her grin grew vicious. "You may not be able to hold on to great many thingzsh in here."

"Give John back," Sherlock growled.

"Why would I keep him? He'zhs of no value to me."

"Give him back."

"No, I don't think I will. I szhall keep thiszh, too."

"I'm prepared to fight you for it," Sherlock said, unscrewing the bottle of holy water under his coat.

"You'll have to," she started saying and Sherlock threw the water in her face. To his great disappointment, it had no effect. "Sszhtupid human cszhild," she hissed, though Sherlock got the distinctive impression he was being laughed at. "I'm one of the Lilim - your artefasctzhs and your wordzhs cannot harm me."

That was problematic. "What would harm you?" Sherlock asked, discarding the bottle and edging towards the rack of swords. The demon tracked his progress with a hint of a smile on her face.

"A duel? How quaint. I szhuppose you would want to wager your preciouzhs zshoul? Eshxzcept I already own it. Why szhould I fight you?"

"You can have it right now, if I lose."

"Oh really?" The demon's eyes glistened, one of them blue, one of them a murky brown. "I am bound by the contract. I cannot harm you."

"Void it. Burn it."

"Why?"

"I will fight you," Sherlock said, picking up a sword. "If I win, I leave with John, and the contract is void. If I lose, you can have my soul right now."

The demon considered, first Sherlock, then the contract. "Why would I riszhk my prize, when itzsh only a matter of time before I have it?" she asked, cocking her head to the side. Her tongue moved across her exposed teeth.

"It's your choice."

"For one little zshoul, a duel?" she laughed. "Why not, perhapszh…"

"John will leave Hell unharmed," Sherlock added, already raising the sword.

"Oh, he will. You have my word."

The parchment shot up in flames in her hand as she walked to the rack and picked a sword. "May fortune favour the true," she said in a mocking tone as their blades crossed. Sherlock gauged the weight of the sword in his hand, whirled it, and struck, but the demon was ready, parrying his blow with a shrug of the shoulder and a step to the side.

Sherlock was proficient at self-defence, but sword fighting was never one of his most favoured past times. He'd fenced briefly, in his youth, achieving a certain level of excellence (naturally) and a very curious case of a decapitated man lead him to try out the broadsword, to better understand the musculature and physics behind it.

Much as it pained him now - judging by the acute stabbing sensation in his biceps, the real pain was yet to come - he had neglected his training of late. In his defence, the statistical likeness of another antique white-weapon related crime in London was unlikely, and the likelihood of one which required more knowledge on the subject than he already possessed was even lower.

It was of no help whatsoever that the demon managed to not only maintain a regular breathing pattern, but also to stay perfectly balanced while wearing a pair of Prada summer of 2010 stiletto heels and a cocktail dress.

"If you yield," she said all of sudden, "I will let you return to the mortal realm."

"And then what?" Sherlock parried a blow and bit through his lip in an effort not to scream at the pain that caused.

"Then you die and return here. I am patzhient and the dealzsh are eternally binding."

"That doesn't seem like an option."

"For you it is the bezsht opzhtion."

"I beg to differ."

She laughed at that, stopped in the middle of a swing and laughed. "How muczh of a zchshance do you think you have?"

Sherlock ducked, rolled, hit the wall and wheezed. He had little to no time to catch his breath as the demon's sword hit the wall just above him, producing a show of sparks. Sherlock jumped to his feet and immediately had to duck again, again and again, until - inevitably - he slipped. Something in his elbow cracked painfully, sending a flare of pain up his arm, numbing his shoulder.

"That didn't take very long."

Sherlock watched with detached interest as the demon crossed the floor, raising the sword above her head. He tried crawling away, but his right arm wouldn't co-operate at all. The vicious, numbing pain shooting up his arm indicated damage to the bone. Sherlock hated his body. So distracting at the most inappropriate times, running out of breath, developing cancer, requiring sustenance-

Oh, he thought as the tip of the sword hovered above his chest. Even if he was to stay in Hell for all eternity, but be free of the peskiness of life, wouldn't it be worth it?

Sherlock found himself lifted by the neck and pinned to the wall. The demon's hand was cutting off his air supply and his feet were barely touching the ground - strange, she didn't seem that tall - and yet she showed no sign of fatigue. The tip of the sword - ten pounds, judging by the quality of metal and the dimensions - never wavered, though she held it parallel to the ground with one hand.

"I win, zScherlock Holmeszh. Your zshoul is mine." The sword thrust forward and Sherlock gasped. He felt - such a bizarre sensation - the tip hit the wall he was pressed against with great force, burrowing into the rock as though it was no more of a barrier than human flesh.

He coughed. Blood welled in his mouth as it flooded the burst alveoli. The demon took a step back and Sherlock slid to the floor. His treacherous body was gasping for breath and John, the poor fool, not quite realising the depth of the damage was trying to staunch the flow of blood by pressing his hands against Sherlock's chest - a futile effort, as the stab may have missed the heart, but not the veins and arteries surrounding it.

John, Sherlock thought. How strange that his mind failed to process his reappearance.

"Sorry," Sherlock managed, coughing up a mouthful of blood onto the floor. "I lost."

"Yes, thank you, Sherlock. Where would I be without you there to point out the obvious." John's hands were running on automatic, balling up his jacket and pressing it against the wound, but his mind was running in circles, panicking like a little child does when left alone for ten minutes. Sherlock could see it, even now, in the lines of his face.

"Wasn't… obvious to me."

If the dark spots were any indication, this wouldn't take long. This should be curious. Sherlock had never died before. A new experience on that front could reinvent his career, bring him data he'd never even dreamed of, because what other detective in the world had pursued the career with the intimate knowledge of death?

"You'll get John home?" he asked in the demon's direction, hating how weak he sounded.

"Why?" she asked, cruelly, and Sherlock didn't even have the time to feel, before the castle and everything in it diffused into the darkness.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

The tea was being poured. Sherlock recognised the sound instantly. It was odd, how the slide of liquid against porcelain differentiated from one substance to another. He, of course, had acute hearing, but the difference in texture should be obvious to anyone with a working brain, so evidently it was left to him and him alone. How was it even possible that in the world only he - and Mycroft, he grudgingly had to admit - possessed the mental acuity to differentiate the obvious from everything else, surely that had to be some kind of an oversight?

He was still alive, he concluded after a moment. There was satin underneath his hands, tightly woven, pressed into elaborate patterns, floral motifs of some sort, a pillow underneath his head and a numbing pain in his chest.

Sherlock opened his eyes with difficulty and sat up. He ached, he found. Aching was an unpleasant side effect of almost dying, one he would rather go without.

"Don't move round too much," John said. "It's not healed yet."

His voice shook a little, though it wasn't through fear alone. There was the edge brought about by a rush of adrenaline, which indicated John was going through an emotional upheaval.

"This isn't a hospital," Sherlock said, feeling around gingerly. The light, scarce as it was, made it difficult to see, while still managing to hurt his eyes.

"It's not. I think even you would be hard pressed to find the NHS in Hell."

"You're still in Hell?"

"Yes, we are." The tone in John's voice, the edge and grim determination awoke something Sherlock was quite unaware he possessed - concern for another human being's sanity.

"Are you out of your mind? You should be long gone!"

"I wasn't going to just leave you here."

"I lost! I am not going anywhere!"

"Yes, you are."

"By all means, if you have some clever way of beating a system that doesn't seem to obey any rules, go for it!" Sherlock ran his hands through his hair and nearly fell off the sofa when his chest responded with such a debilitating wave of pain, he had to bite his lip not to moan.

"There are rules," said a third voice, refined and though it spoke English, Sherlock couldn't place the accent at all. The part of his brain devoted to speech recognition patterns realised it was British English, though it seemed confused as to why. "So many rules that have to be obeyed. It could drive you insane."

Sherlock stared and through the gloom there emerged the figure of a man, who sat in a chair sipping tea from a fragile porcelain cup. He was blond, handsome and blue-eyed, though any more of a description would have to wait, because Sherlock's eyes hurt. It was as though everything in the room had too many angles, everything seemed a little more real, a little more important, than he was used to.

"It's very frustrating."

"I agree."

"Why am I still alive? Actually, am I still alive?" Sherlock pressed two fingers into his carotid artery, finding a steady pulse. "I am alive. Why?"

The man smiled. "Because I want you to be alive."

"Wonderful. And you are?"

John coughed into his tea, on the verge of choking.

"I'm called Lucifer."

A number of pieces of information flitted through Sherlock's head, none of them of any use.

"He means he's the Devil," John said.

Sherlock let out a long ooh. "Where are the horns?"

Lucifer raised a brow.

"Most literature insists on horns and hooves. Some even add a tail."

"Yes, the anatomy of demons, most relevant now. Can we move on?" John put his cup down. "Why did you help us?"

"Would you rather I left Sherlock to bleed out?"

"Of course not. This still doesn't explain why you helped us."

Lucifer leaned forward. "I have, shall we say, an errand to run. I cannot do it myself and asking for help is not something I'm good at, so it is most fortunate you are here, now, requiring assistance."

"You brought us here because you have an errand?" John leapt out of his chair then sat back again. The chair made no sound. Sherlock watched the pillows dip, but there was no hint of dust, not even a speck. "You'd think I'd be used to it by now," he added, as though to himself, casting a glance at Sherlock. "Aren't you two related?"

"I didn't bring you here. I cannot. The rules," Lucifer scoffed, "bind me to this dominion alone, unable to inflict much harm on the mortal plane."

"Which is great for us, I guess. This still seems needlessly complicated."

"You have no idea." Lucifer took a sip of tea. "So, your deal, Sherlock."

"What about it?"

"As of now, you should be dead. Your soul is Mazikeen's property, legally, you might even say. It is in your best interest to remain alive."

"What difference does it make, now or in a year."

"I could nullify that contract," Lucifer said.

"Why?"

"I am the sovereign of Hell. Deals are, in a way, made under Hell's aegis."

"That still doesn't explain why."

"I have an errand, I believe I mentioned that already."

Sherlock leaned forward, despite the pain in his chest and John's warning glare. "And the deal will be annulled?"

"Completely. Mazikeen will relinquish all claim, you will be guaranteed immunity and let nature take its course."

"That seems reasonable. All right."

"Wait, no! What does this errand entail, precisely?" John asked.

"Ah, you brought a lawyer. Excellent if unnecessary." Lucifer smiled. "Nothing damning, I promise. All I need you to do is to build and open a door."

"A door for what?"

"For me. I need a vacation."

John closed his mouth and glared at Sherlock. "I think it is a bad idea."

"It does let me of the hook."

"It does," Lucifer said. "No ties, no small print. You say yes and you are free to earn your place in Hell any other way."

"You seriously expect us to trust you?"

Lucifer grinned a winsome grin. The tiny lines around his eyes crinkled, his eyes remained fixed on Sherlock. He had to be sincere. "Why wouldn't you?"

"Aren't you the Prince of Lies?"

"Patently untrue."

"And the title of Prince of Lies is what, propaganda?"

"Belongs to Beelzebub, as you'd know, if you did some research." Lucifer poured himself another cup of tea and stirred in a spoonful of sugar. "I never lie. I find it pointless, when truth gets you so much further."

"You are trying to tell me that a tiny favour would save us from going to Hell?"

"I didn't say that. What it will get you is a blank slate. Whether you end up in Hell or not depends entirely on you."

"I'm sold," Sherlock said.

"I can tell you haven't ever signed anything of importance." John crossed his arms. "Somehow, this is not surprising. What about the fine print?"

"At this point it is less about fine print, but rather a question of how much you want to stay in Hell right now, Sherlock." Lucifer fixed his unnerving, sharp stare on Sherlock. It wasn't much different from being stabbed in the chest.

"I don't. I'm sorry, John," Sherlock said, bowing his head. "I really don't want to stay in Hell."

John sighed. "I don't blame you."

"Do we have a deal then?"

Sherlock shot John a look, but John wasn't looking at him. "Yes, we do." He didn't look when Sherlock held out his hand towards the Devil and felt him grasp it for a shake. When he looked at him again, Lucifer was grinning.

"Excellent," he heard him say and then the world dissolved into a whirlpool of dirty water and coldness. For a long moment all Sherlock could feel was the touch of cool skin on his hand, a touch that burned and froze at the same time, and then there was cold everywhere. His mouth opened instinctively to draw a breath, but an impulse thankfully stopped the inhalation and he spiralled into the darkness, breathless.

Sherlock surfaced with a gasp. His body ached, his chest in particular, but the debilitating pain was a thing of the past. Good thing, too, as he was going to need all the help he could get to get out of the Thames unassisted.

John was nowhere to be seen. Not worrying, strictly speaking - he was an accomplished swimmer, the inter-dimensional travel had likely caused a touch of disorientation, unlikely to be fatal, but likely to tear them apart and into separate currents.

High over his head a group of people were looking down, screaming and pointing, their heads haloed by the lights on the bridge. There was at least one police hat among them - Sherlock dove and - as fast as his billowing coat would allow - swam for the shore.

Where was John?

Hauling himself out of the Thames was doubly difficult, first, because of the soggy coat, second, because of the amount of police patrolling the banks. You'd think Lestrade had tasked all of London's forces to find Sherlock dragging himself out of the river.

Sherlock paused in the middle of the street, his hand raised high to hail a cab. That was more than likely, actually. Much of the force was dedicated to make him look like an idiot, and Anderson had taken up scrapbooking lately - minute traces of glue on his hands and cuffs, scraps of paper sticking to his trousers - which, given his distaste for menial work and more frequent glaring at Sherlock, could only mean he was collecting evidence that painted Sherlock in unfavourable light. Surely a photo of him as a drowned rat would be the crowning piece of the collection, if Sherlock was stupid enough to allow for it to be taken.

Thus it was late when Sherlock walked up the steps to Baker Street. Three taxis passed him by, before one decided to stop, and it was only on the condition he sit on a tarp. Given that the man consented to being paid in soggy bills, Sherlock refrained from commenting, though of course the man's short temper and lousy care of his cab (clearly alcohol related, which in turn was influenced by his upcoming divorce) would mean he was on the verge of losing his income.

Mrs Hudson was watching TV in her flat. Sherlock took off his shoes to avoid making his presence known. There was likely to be a row about the dripping on the carpet, but that was best relegated to after John was found.

Sherlock opened the door at the top of the stairs and found John on the couch. "Well, now I can let Mrs Hudson yell at me," he said, shedding his coat. He moved to hang it on the hook and paused. There was something odd in the way the hook looked, as though every edge was its own separate entity, as though the hook was infinitely more important than the rest of the universe.

So was the one beside it, and so was the door handle and so was the door and so was the wallpaper and-

Sherlock staggered into a chair. "What's happening?" he asked, and John raised his head.

Nothing was different. Sherlock knew, because he knew everything there was to know about John's face, everything. Every wrinkle in his skin and the texture, every crease, the exact shade of his eyes, the shape of his features. He knew it all by heart, could recreate his face down to the last detail, and it was all there, exactly the same as always.

And yet, just as he knew it was John, Sherlock knew that it wasn't. If nothing else, his mind rebelled at the paradox.

It took no more than a fraction of a second to cross the room to get the gun John had unwittingly taken to leaving in the cupboard - Sherlock's moods were unpredictable, he never knew when he might need to shoot at the wall. Now he pointed the gun at John-who-was-not-John. "Who the hell are you?"

"Are you going to shoot me?" John asked, picking up a cup of tea.

"Possibly. Who are you?"

"Forgotten so soon?"

Sherlock shook his head, trying to focus, but focusing was so difficult when every speck of dust was sharp and interesting and had a story to tell. "Lucifer," he managed. "Where's John?"

"Here. It's complicated."

"You said we'd be free to return," Sherlock said. "You said we won't have to deal with you anymore!"

"Yes, I did." Lucifer looked into the gun Sherlock kept pointed at his head. "Are you going to do anything with that? You were stabbed, and then took a swim, that's got to take its toll."

"I'm fine."

"More or less, yes. Healing, however, cannot exactly leap over the physical boundaries. You will feel the effects of the injury for a while yet. I'd advise you to take it easy, like not holding your arm in the air for an extended period of time." Lucifer took a sip of tea. "Hmm. Everything tastes different up here. I really enjoy Earl Grey. It just doesn't taste the same in Hell."

Sherlock's hand didn't shake. He knew it didn't, because his hands never shook, especially when he was holding a gun. Even when his head was pounding, trying to process too much information, like the glint of light at the edge of the knife on the mantelpiece, the structure of woven carpet, whose patterns revealed strange new places, hidden in the dust and wool.

"What do you want?" Sherlock asked, defeated. The gun fell to the floor, hitting the floor with a dull thud.

"For starters, the safety on. I wouldn't want you to shoot yourself, or me, by accident."

"How is that a problem, can't you heal me again?" Sherlock asked, but picked up the weapon and flipped the safety on.

"Not really. Like I said, what I can do where human beings are concerned is severely limited. Have a seat."

"I don't understand."

"That must be the first time you've said that. I cannot directly influence living humans, not without getting heavenly attention. The only reason I could heal you in Hell, was that John specifically asked for it."

"So much for him being smart," Sherlock muttered.

"All humans abandon common sense, sooner or later. The trick is knowing the right time." Lucifer picked up the cup.

"What would happen if I were to shoot you right now?"

"I would return to Hell." Lucifer watched him with a stony expression Sherlock found unsettling on John's face. "So yes, it would be the wisest course of action. You would have thwarted the Devil, a feat not many people can claim as an accomplishment."

"I assume there is a but?"

"But of course John would die with me. And since I am a psychopomp, I would take him to Hell with me."

'Psychopomp' gave Sherlock a moment's pause, until his half-forgotten Greek kicked in, giving him an approximation of the intended meaning.

"You think I wouldn't sacrifice John to keep you in Hell?"

"I don't know. It's a gamble." Lucifer took a sip of his tea.

"Now, what I need you to do, is to build me a doorway and invite me into your world."

"What happens if I refuse?"

"Nothing, really. I will take a grand tour, then return to Hell."

"What happens to John?"

"To be quite honest, I don't know. I'm told my presence has a tremendous effect on the perceptions of those around me, though how it influences my host long-term, I don't know. I've never tried it for more than a few minutes before." Lucifer turned his head towards the ceiling, with his eyes closed. "John seems like a remarkably sane man, I wonder how long can he hold himself together in the presence of an angel."

"A what?"

"Ah yes, that would be the famous ignorance. I am, fundamentally, an angel. You can read up on it later."

"That's blackmail."

"Perhaps. John did agree though, to whatever end, so really, it's up to you."

It was so bizarre to watch John talk, when everything he did screamed at Sherlock that it was not John, that the inflection was wrong, the accent was inaccurate, that the words and the pauses and the meaning was twisted and simply didn't match the face. Sherlock's chest ached, remembering the wound and with it the last time he saw John being John.

Lucifer, however, wasn't finished. "Are you going to help me, Sherlock?"

"What happens to me, if I spend any more time with you?"

"A headache would be my guess. You're too much like an angel yourself to be affected that much."

"I am not!"

Lucifer raised a brow, and it was as though a mask was placed over John's features. "Most people would take that as a complement. Wrongly, of course. Angels are an unpleasant lot."

"I'll do it," Sherlock said. "Whatever it is. As long as you leave and never bother us again."

"Splendid. You have my word."

There were a few things Sherlock had never attempted; carpentry was one of them. Murder committed on the job by menial workers was surprisingly uncommon, thus Sherlock had no reason to delve into the craft, as he preferred to do when a case was at stake.

"This really isn't necessary," Lucifer told him, lifting a tome on the practical implementation of carpentry with the air of a biologist picking up a lab rat. "Any three sticks would do. A door is more of a metaphor in this case."

"It might be your custom to do half a job, it is not mine."

Lucifer looked at him, devoid of expression. "Do you know how many people have dared mouth off to me?"

"Not many, I'm guessing." There was a wealth of arrogance shining through his every move, through John's every move, and Sherlock was beginning to get fed up with it. "I'm told it works wonders on the character."

"Hurry," Lucifer said, coldly. "Your friend may not have much time."

"May not have much time?"

That ugly smile didn't belong on John's face, ever. "Is this the time to lecture you on the nature of angels?"

Sherlock rarely bothered to mark his place in a book, but he did so now, before turning in his chair to face the Devil. "Enlighten me."

"We are beings of thoughts and emotion, not flesh, like you. If I'm angry," he said, raising an open palm to reveal a bursting flame, "there are no words for how fiery I could get." The flames disappeared as he clenched his fist. "Do not anger me, Sherlock. Your friend is on the line."

Sherlock bit his lip and flipped his book open, again. "All the more reason to do this right." Inside, in the distant part of his psyche that perched on the fringe of his consciousness and chanted murdermurderpleasemurder, he now prayed for John's strength and integrity. The man had suffered Hell, just to watch over Sherlock, surely he could withstand a day of angelic fire.

He had to.

"Really, Sherlock. You cannot possibly think me this stupid." Sherlock ignored the burning gaze directed at his back, in favour of the book and tried to keep on reading even when he felt John's breath against his ear, so close he could barely hear the words over the whoosh of moving air.

"Let's make a deal. I will give you time, say, twenty-four hours, to come up with a way to thwart me. I guarantee John will remain unharmed for that amount of time. However, for every minute you waste after that, I will burn a piece off him, until there is nothing left."

Sherlock held his breath and Lucifer loomed over him, one hand on the book before him, the other on the back of his chair, so that there was no actual physical contact, and yet Sherlock felt the flames licking at his skin.

"And I promise you, it will be slow, and painful, so that every minute will feel like an eternity, and I will remember every second of it, so that I can thrust the memories into your mind, then whenever you close your eyes you will watch John burn.

"Go," Lucifer said. "I will be waiting here."

No more distractions, Sherlock told himself as he rushed downstairs, pulling the coat on as he went. This is just a case, no more. Focus on the case, focus on the gritty little details, on everything that pertains to the crime committed, focus on the wind and the sun and the rain, on the pavement on which they walked, because that's where the solution must inevitably be.

Where in London would he find information about the Devil? he asked himself, tearing open the door of a cab even before it came to a complete stop. His brief venture in the world of the occult had left him with many unanswered questions, which seemed so trivial, so immaterial at the time, and now proved to be of utmost importance. Everything was riding on this. Everything that meant anything.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Extraordinary circumstances required allowances. Those included moving out of one's comfort zone. Sherlock wrapped his coat tighter around himself. Public transportation was an inconvenience, a poorly managed inconvenience, full of irrelevant people with uninteresting problems. The staccato of the wheels hitting the rails bored into his skull with the efficiency of a power drill.

His immediate companion was a pudgy girl in her early twenties - uneven make-up covered portions of her face, suggesting she needed to disguise discolouration of skin in particular places, which were consistent with the marks of a harsh slap; smell of perfume and cologne, stale clothes and take-out, a textbook in her bag, a student, likely living with a boyfriend; covering bruises, shame and the instinct to hide them; a certain amount of bounce in her, a little fright, not the first time it'd happened, but still in its early stages. "Leave him," he told her.

"Excuse me?"

"Statistically, abusers never stop the abuse. Anything he does or says that makes you think otherwise is wishful thinking."

The girl gathered her things and fled, without a word. Sherlock shrugged and threw his legs onto her seat. Only an hour longer on the train, twenty-one hours and seventeen minutes left, twenty exactly when he reached his destination, if he ran.

The train rolled into the station three minutes past schedule. Sherlock was out the door as soon as he could squeeze through, and then he was running at top speed through the countryside, as though the hounds of the hunt were on his tail.

The village had changed in the past ten years, but he barely noticed. The cobbles remained as they were, and that's how he found his way now - the idiocy of people, redoing the facades of their homes, failing to realise that buildings were a major navigational feature. Good thing no one rearranged the streets. Seven streets north, two south, a wooden gate, half a mile up the beaten tract and there it was - the tiny chapel he'd come to when he'd lost all hope for recovery, when all hope for anything at all had been lost.

Just like before, Sherlock entered without hesitation. No one was there, so he walked in and took a seat. Same as the last time. The chapel was well-kept, clean, sparsely decorated, peaceful. There were smudges on the glass, suggesting it had been washed recently, and fresh flowers were on the table in the middle.

He was certain he didn't doze, but he was forced to conclude there had been a moment when he wasn't fully conscious of the passage of time. Nineteen hours, three minutes remaining and he wasn't alone.

An old lady was kneeling in the pew next to his, lost in prayer. Sherlock breathed out. There had been the risk of him making the journey and finding a gravestone. "Hello," he said. His voice echoed in the small room, as though it were a cathedral.

She glared at him. "Shush, boy. This is a house of God."

"I need to know about the Devil."

Her eyes narrowed further, disappearing amidst wrinkles in translucent skin. She was older than Sherlock remembered, no surprise, really. "I remember you."

"I'm glad."

"Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your saviour yet?"

Sherlock remembered him from his memory of the story John relayed in Hell, further confirmed by the insistent flickering of her eyes towards the statue of the crucified man on the altar. "I assumed he's too busy being tortured to death to bother with saving others."

"Heathen!"

"I'm having a little bit of trouble with the Devil."

"Pray, and you may still be saved."

"It's a little more immediate than that. I need to know how to kill the Devil. Is there a gun, or a weapon, or anything of that sort?"

The lady laughed. "Kill the Adversary! With a gun! Foolish child." Out from the depths of her book there came another heavy, leather-bound book, painstakingly copied from old manuscripts. "Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings."

"I don't think they are. Please, this is really quite urgent."

The lady closed her book and glared. "When you came here last, you said something about writing a novel."

"It turned out to be more… complicated than I anticipated. Working on a sequel now."

"You come here to mock me?" her hands tightened on her cane - a new addition to her daily routine, the foot was hardly worn at all - "I will not be mocked. I am not insane. I know what I see is true."

"Madam, I believe you. I have no intention of mocking you. I need help. Please."

She gave him one last look. "I shall pray first," she said, "You too." Sherlock groaned, but at her behest knelt on the worn wood and folded his hands as she did. Her head was bowed as she mumbled under her breath, so he bowed his head as well.

The pews were dark and old, but the coating of varnish was fresh. The strokes of brush were inexpert, likely made by a complete amateur, since there was also a certain fragility to the lines, suggesting an uncertain hand, which in turn implied an elderly person. Plenty of jobs done at the church carried the mark of an infirm hand, from the coat of paint on the walls to the ragged edges to the cloth on the table.

"I can see this is getting us nowhere," she said all of sudden.

"I'm sorry?"

"Round and round the garden? This is a house of God, I will not have it defiled by your presence no further. Let's go."

Eighteen hours, forty-nine minutes to go.

She took him to a solitary house, not that different from the other houses in the village. The only difference was the garden; instead of flowers, it was lined with herbs, many of which were poisonous, while plenty of others could be used for seasoning. A strange fancy must have prompted that arrangement, when both were often sharing a space.

Her kitchen was small but light, but it was the library that was the goal that sent Sherlock rushing out of London. In the unassuming little house the ordinary old lady held a collection of rare volumes - some copied, but a few originals as well - all of them devoted to demons and creatures of the night.

So Sherlock drank his tea and ate a cookie, as she wouldn't be convinced he thought better when his stomach was empty, and leafed through pages upon pages of tiny scribbles. "How can I kill the Devil?" he asked.

"Jesus will defeat the Adversary."

"Without his interference."

"It is quite impossible. What is this book you're writing?"

"About a man who goes to Hell and walks out possessed by the Devil, who wants to walk the Earth."

"Does he succeed?"

"That depends on what I find here."

"I see. Well…" her bones cracked as she carefully hoisted herself out of the chair. "It is quite impossible to kill the Devil, of course. Even the most skilled exorcists can do no more than banish him. The best one can hope for is to return him to his kingdom."

"How?"

She picked out a book, a dark, aged tome, filled with fresh, white pages. "In a mortal vessel, you say? Why, it's quite simple then. Kill the vessel."

"Absolutely not."

"The Devil must be stopped," the old lady said, scandalised. "At all cost! In a novel even more!" She stared at Sherlock. "There is no novel. There is no story."

"Would it really be so bad, to have him out in the open?" Sherlock flipped through entire chapters, stopping only when a word would catch his eye.

"The Devil's dominion is Hell! Wherever he goes, he is sure to drag Hell along with him, mark my words." Her eyes blazed as she spoke, as though she'd forgotten everything else in her zeal to proclaim these warnings. "He will come, and with him the legion of his minions, who will wreak havoc upon this world!"

Sherlock nodded, barely listening. The words on the page danced before him, mixed with the memories of Hell, the world that was build on everything but logic, a world in which gravity had a temperament and displayed it often, in which causality could be looped in on itself. A world in which criminals could disappear into thin air, in which they could commit their crimes without even leaving their homes…

A key turned in the lock and soon after that a young woman appeared at the library door. "Grandma, you've got a guest!"

"The Devil is coming, dear," the old lady said, hiding in her chair. "He will come and the legions of Hell will follow him."

"Not for a while yet," the girl said with a small smile, before turning to Sherlock. "I'm sorry, when she gets like this it could be hours before she's lucid again."

"It's no trouble," Sherlock said, flicking his fingers before the girl's eyes, simultaneously hiding the book in his coat with the other hand. "We had a pleasant enough chat. Good day to you."

Two hours before the return train, sixteen hours, thirty-nine minutes.

Sherlock read as he waited at the station. The book was hand-written, undoubtedly by the lady herself - signs of dementia, even in the early parts of the text, and a shaky hand towards the end, often launching into irrelevant tirades on the margins - visions of Hell and demons and visitations by spirits who spoke of the strangest things.

Hell on Earth, he repeated to himself over and over again, flipping through pages of visions of labyrinths which drove some people insane and yet which were straight and open as the highway, of buildings which wrapped around its inhabitants and never let them go, for thousands of years. These were the details that his mind made vivid and real, amidst the carnage and misery that permeated the words.

Kill John, stop that from befalling the Earth?

Sherlock snapped the book shut. Kill John, stop the world from going to Hell. Kill John, or Hell. Kill John, doom him to Hell.

He nearly missed the return train.

It was John's voice that greeted him when he returned to Baker Street.

"Found anything?" he asked, raising a brow. Sherlock averted his gaze. There was something about John that hurt his eyes.

"No."

"I could have saved you the journey."

"Thank you, no."

"Suit yourself. Are you done trying?"

"I believe I still have eleven hours, six minutes."

"You do." Lucifer picked up a book and flipped idly through the pages. "Don't be too hard on yourself."

"Thank you for the concern."

"Oh, I'm not concerned. I only need you well enough to utter an invitation, and for all my limitation I can do that with ease."

Sherlock filed the comment away. "The explosion," he said finally. "I knew something was off."

"A minor intervention on my part."

"I knew it!"

"Surprising, really."

"How so?"

"John'd known, right away, which was fairly inconvenient. Any human being would know. Except you."

"I knew we shouldn't have been able to survive that explosion."

"Yes, that you knew. By calculating the magnitude of the explosion and your relative positions."

"I don't see the difference."

"That is why you almost got skewered by the siren." Lucifer turned a page in the newspaper and raised a brow again. "Now that is just plain silly."

Sherlock retired to his room. He could feel the minutes trickling by, as though there was a ticking bomb strapped to his chest. The irony was not entirely lost on him.

Ten hours had past and he was no closer to finding a way to get out of the obligation than he had been at the beginning. Or rather he had the perfect way to get out of it, except that was the one road he didn't want to take, a concept so novel he needed an hour just to familiarise himself with the feeling.

He went through it, for hours, lying in the dark on his bed. He'd never shot a man before, but that wasn't the trouble. He was an exceptional marksman, and a sociopath to boot. He could easily shoot a man through the head at close range, wash his blood and brains off his hands and then go for coffee without the slightest twinge of remorse.

It wasn't that the thought of John's demise had never even crossed his mind, oh no. He'd pictured it many times over, in the months they've been living together. Given their line of work it was more than likely that Sherlock would witness John's final breath. Britain's disdain for guns meant only that the probability of getting shot was low, there were still knives and bombs and cars. Sherlock had considered them all. He'd studied John's medical history, the surgery done on the bullet wound that caused him trouble on rainy days, and imagined what it must have been like, when the bullet hit. John's report had been terse, written in shorthand - twitchy, uneven letters, still under the influence of painkillers - gloriously brief, bereft of unnecessary details.

This gave Sherlock a long moment of wonder in the hospital. The incident that resulted in John's wound was mundane, more of an accident than a result of deliberate action on anyone's part (which was only sensible, John was just an army doctor, unlikely to see front line action), least of all John's. There were no heroics or melodrama, just a stray bullet and a lot of pain, spread out over a long period of time. He'd sat in the Afghan desert for hours, according to the report, just watching the sky and wondering how long would it take, either for help to arrive or for the blood loss to render him incapable of self-defence, thought, life…

Sherlock liked to call up the image on the rare occasions he tried to sleep. It soothed his frantic brain, gave him a semblance of peace in the darkness. He'd close his eyes and imagine sitting beside John under the black sky, bright with points of light, watching the desert, as their blood sunk into the sand. Inevitably the sound of breathing would dwindle to nothing, and Sherlock would no longer remember who he was. The desert would be dark and inviting, and empty, offering the quiet and comfort he seldom experienced and then he'd been able to sleep.

John had died a hundred times in his mind, in every possible way. Sherlock had washed his blood off his hands a hundred times, all the while watching John potter about the house, unaware. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, it would have been him who pulls the trigger, administers the poison, or thrusts the knife - there had been a dream in which John died on the hood of Sherlock's car, a concept ridiculous by it's very nature, as Sherlock didn't drive.

He'd pictured the moment so many times. He'd be slow, gentle even, standing before John with the gun in his hand, and John would watch him every step of the way, a small smile on his face. Sherlock would bring the gun to his forehead, their eyes would meet and John would still be watching when Sherlock pulled the trigger.

That way, no one would ever again take him away.

His fingers twitched. The suffering of others meant very little to him, human or animal. So why was it that the thought of John dying was so abhorrent, all of sudden? All men died eventually, and given all this new data, Sherlock would join John in Hell sooner rather than later.

Sherlock turned, facing the wall.

He should have known this was a bad idea. Sharing inevitably lead to catastrophes. In his defence he'd never suspected it might turn out to be true in this case. He'd been above such petty things all of his life, so why now? How now, even? He'd known Lestrade for five years, seven months and thirteen days, and he was fond of him as he was fond of anything, but he'd step back and watch him die without a twinge to show for it. As there was supposed to be a correlation between the length of a relationship and emotional attachment, this seemed doubly suspect. He'd known John for less than a year.

Five hours, twenty-one minutes…

They were unlikely to get more privacy in central London than could be had on the roof of Baker Street. Sherlock carefully triangulated the position of the CCTV, so that he remained in their blind spot, and built the door. He'd been less than pleased with the quality - carpentry was a lot more complicated than he'd suspected, virtually impossible to get right at first try - but the construction, at the very least, was upright and stable.

"I'm doing this under protest."

"Duly noted. You needn't have gone to so much trouble, I told you, anything would do." Lucifer had brought a knife with him and as soon as Sherlock was done he started carving symbols into the frame, some that Sherlock recognised as Hebrew script, some he had never seen before.

The muzzle of the gun dug into Sherlock's spine. It seemed to be getting heavier and hotter with every second, calling to him in a voice that drowned out everything else, until finally Sherlock reached for it. It was cold, to his surprise, given how it burned his skin, more so when he pointed it at the back of Lucifer's - John's! - head.

Strange, how acutely aware he was of this person before him, how every move betrayed that he was not John, and yet, somehow, with the gun, all he could think about was John. He pulled the trigger, and in the very same instant Lucifer turned, and moved away from the bullet's path, and then he was on Sherlock and they were both falling, until Sherlock's back hit the ground. Lucifer's grip on his hand, still wrapped around the gun, burned, and it was more than the pain caused by the force exerted by human muscles. Sherlock saw, out of the corner of his eye, the steel of the revolver glowing, he saw smoke, but then Lucifer's face was so close to his own and he could barely breathe.

"You insignificant ape!" he hissed. "How dare you!"

"You said," Sherlock started saying, though the burning sensation in his hand was causing extreme discomfort.

"Invite me in," Lucifer said, just as his hand tightened around Sherlock's. "Now."

There might have been fire. Sherlock wasn't sure. Black spots whirled in front of his eyes and there were lights, too, even as he screamed the invitation through the burning pain.

Lucifer let go then, letting Sherlock drop onto the roof. "Good boy."

"Wait!" Sherlock called, picking himself up from the ground. His hand was on fire, and his vision was liquefying the world before his eyes, but Lucifer barely awarded him a glance as he stepped through the door. Sherlock watched him turn on the other side, bare his teeth and raise his arms - John's arms - and then a bright light engulfed him, swallowing the world.

He might have imagined the deafening noise that tore through the air and knocked him off his feet. He might have imagined the flames consuming the inefficient door-like structure and John, still standing in the middle as the inferno roared around him.

He might have imagined screaming himself hoarse, before there was silence and darkness, at last.

There was a bed. An uncomfortable one, by objective standards. The mattress was lumpy and providing support in all the wrong places. The air was chock-full of smells; antiseptics, ointments - three different sterilising substances, quite easy to distinguish - linen and blood. Also orchids, roses and lilies.

Sherlock opened his eyes to find a thousand dust specs dancing in the beam of light above.

"Took you long enough," Mycroft said. "I see waiting by your bed is becoming a bimonthly tradition."

Sherlock coughed. His throat felt like it was scraped raw. "What time is it?"

"Quarter past three in the morning."

"Impossible."

"I have overwhelming evidence."

"What are you doing here?"

"Can I not be concerned about my brother's well-being?"

"Frankly, no." Sherlock looked down at the standard hospital sheet, thin enough to provide no heat isolation whatsoever. "Where is John?" he asked tensely, still studying the weave, running over the possible answers. Dead. They found the body - parts of the body, charred beyond recognition, though bearing the marks of torture - on neighbouring rooftops. Missing. They found no remains on the soot-covered roof. Seen laying waste to London, by means of fire and brimstone and mutilation of her population.

Mycroft didn't even blink. "Outside. Lestrade is questioning him, I believe."

That was unexpected. "Why?"

"He was with you on the rooftop. Also, I assume his fingerprints on the Semtex in the bouquet of forsythia had something to do with it."

"Excuse me?"

Mycroft pointed his umbrella at the far table. Orchids, Sherlock noted. Next to them, a massive bouquet of iForsythia intermedia/i, decorated with asparagus fern, and then a plainer, but still huge, ball of iClematis flammula/i, amongst which sat a folded piece of paper.

"Why is there shrubbery in here?"

"Brought by well-wishers, mostly."

Sherlock blinked. "I have those?"

"The orchids are from myself and Anthea. The clematis is from the police force. I think the card is Mr Anderson's personal touch."

"Charmed, I'm sure. Why are they here?"

"My guess would be that all those people wish you a speedy recovery."

This was news to Sherlock. "No one bothered the last time."

"Well, there wasn't much cause to gloat then, was there?"

"That makes no sense."

"Sir?" Mycroft's assistant appeared in the door, phone in hand.

"For God's sake," John was saying behind her, "Let me in."

Mycroft waved his hand and she stepped aside, letting John through.

"Honestly, two bloody geniuses and you need Lestrade to confirm I didn't send Sherlock flowers with Semtex? If I wanted to blow him up, I would have filled the couch with it."

"Who is the forsythia from?"

"The yellow bush?" John hesitated. "From Moriarty, I assume."

Sherlock gave the flowers a long look. "And there's nothing in them?"

"Just the Semtex. It wasn't rigged to blow. I think it was meant to be a signature."

"As touching as this reunion is, I must take my leave now." Mycroft stood up, tapping his umbrella against the floor. "Next time, Sherlock, do try and think before you start any experiments, would you? Stay in the hospital, until they release you."

John looked to the ceiling. He didn't look at Sherlock until after Mycroft left. "I told them you were experimenting with propane." His eyes travelled to and from the screen at Sherlock's side, up to the IV and down to the needle in his arm.

Sherlock raised a brow. "Is the medical treatment to your satisfaction?"

"Not really, they haven't taped your mouth shut."

"I'm getting out of here," Sherlock said, getting out of bed. Thankfully no one had bothered to undress him, it was merely a question of finding his shoes.

"Can I adopt Mycroft? He's so useful when it comes to making you do things."

"Very funny."

Sneaking out of the hospital wasn't hard at all. The security was laughable; Sherlock could walk out of there having committed no less than seventeen murders and a dozen thefts - morphine, codeine, syringes, he would have never come here again.

It'd been hell, staying by John's side the last time, with all those substances at the tips of his fingers, it was no better now.

Baker Street was largely unchanged. Even the cup empty of tea was still on the coffee table.

"I'm bored."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I rather think I am."

"You aren't allowed to be bored for at least a week. I need to get some sleep, and possibly earn enough money to pay the bills."

"What am I supposed to do, then? Crotchet?"

"Here." John dropped a round, rubbery object in Sherlock's lap. "Though crocheting is not a bad idea either."

"What is this?"

"A rubber ball."

"And?"

John hesitated. "It's for your hand."

Sherlock felt the need to blink in surprise for a couple of seconds, before finally looking down. It seemed odd that he'd miss it for so long. There were bandages on his right hand, from the tips of his fingers to the wrist. "What am I supposed to do with it?"

"It's for squeezing."

Sherlock gave the ball an experimental squeeze with his left hand. "I don't see how is that supposed to stave off the boredom."

"Oh, for God's sake." John snatched the ball out of his hand and forcefully put it in the other one. Sherlock winced, and clearly some of it had shown on his hand, because John dropped the ball as though it was red-hot and got up. "The bandage needs changing," he called from the kitchen. "Don't move."

"I fail to see how squeezing a rubber novelty is supposed to help with anything," Sherlock yelled back.

"If you ever want to play the violin again, it should." John returned, dropped a first-aid kit on the table and snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

"Oh," Sherlock said, and the fingers of his left hand automatically tightened, trying to find the strings on the neck of the imagined violin. With John unwrapping the gauze, looking as though the task would take hours to accomplish, he started going through the Sonata in F, but given the attention lavished on the wound, testing was going to be difficult. "My phalanxes seem to be mobile. The violin is not out of question yet."

"Yes, except right now all you'd be capable off would be the sound approximating that of a cat being flayed alive."

"Your taste in music leaves much to be desired."

"So says the man who refuses to acknowledge basic scientific facts."

"Again with the useless sciences. Astronomy can hardly even be called that!"

"Just because you think something is unimportant, doesn't mean it's not!" John glared over the charred edge of Sherlock's fingernail. His thumbs were kneading the joints that connected Sherlock's fingers to his palms, sending a symphony of jolts of burning pain up his arm.

"I seem to be in a considerable amount of pain," Sherlock said as he watched John's ministrations. His palm and fingers bore the sings of having been in contact with a heated metal surface, consistent with the shape of John's revolver. It was the back of his hand that bore more interesting marks; long, narrow and angry-red slashes of burnt skin, not unlike the burns left by red-hot metal or acid, or even a naked flame.

"I told them not to give you any sedatives."

"That doesn't seem fair."

"Tough."

"Are you okay?" Sherlock asked, after a few moments of silence. John wasn't looking at him. "Is he gone?"

"Yes."

"But are you fine?"

"Are you?" John paused in his ministrations. "I did hurt you."

"Oh? When?"

"Did you hit your head? Far as I recall you managed not to, but no one ever lost money betting against you doing anything stupid, so I can't be sure."

"I only ever do what is necessary."

"Right." John rolled his eyes and continued causing substantial pain by working the joints of Sherlock's hand. "With as much flare and show as humanly possible. Or, often, more."

"These are very interesting," Sherlock said. "Hand me my magnifying glass, would you?"

John didn't move, and the expression on his face caused Sherlock a long moment of discomfort. He was familiar with that expression, naturally, though it very seldom registered, even rarer was that it registered in the proper context.

"Are you upset?" he tried cautiously.

John opened his mouth, closed it, then looked away. "Of course I'm upset, idiot. Those are deep, second-degree burns, third degree in places. Half the bones in your hand are cracked, your arm is broken. You'll be lucky if you retain enough dexterity to pick up a pen again."

"Nonsense." Ah, spare magnifying glass. It paid to get spares, and it paid to leave them lying about the house. The line between healthy and burned skin was sharp: the object that caused it had to have been solid. Upon closer inspection the marks weren't uniform, either. The shape of them closely resembled that of human fingers, though how…

"John," Sherlock said. John still wouldn't look him in the eye. "Show me your hands. Without the glove."

John made no move to comply, so Sherlock reached out and peeled the glove off his left hand - he was nearly ambidextrous, but he often preferred to shoot with his right, meaning an effective block, one allowing for further frontal contact had to be done with the right, meaning -

"You're unharmed."

"Yes, on the whole." John didn't seem happy.

"Would you rather he hurt you?"

"Of course not." There was still the note of anger and fear in John's voice, but…

"Remarkable. Given the precise edge to the burns it must have been only by physical contact that the heat was transferred, none of the energy whatsoever dissipating into the air. A remarkable physical phenomenon-"

"A hundred percent energy transfer efficiency," John finished in unison. "I am a doctor, Sherlock. I am aware of the fundamental laws of physics."

"You are unharmed. Excellent. I wasn't certain he'd keep his word." If the moments after Lucifer crossed the threshold into the world were any indication, he was certain he wouldn't.

John chuckled mirthlessly. "It was a patently stupid thing you did, Sherlock."

"So you keep telling me."

"I wish I didn't have to tell you."

"What would you have me do, then?"

John looked out the window, at London, at the awakening of her diurnal population. Up high the sun was rising and perhaps it was his imagination, but the shade seemed slightly different today. As though there was something different in the air, now the door was open. "You should have shot me."

"I tried."

"You failed. You don't usually fail at things you do, which leads me to believe you weren't really trying."

"Lucifer disagreed."

"That is going to come back to bite you."

"I really don't care."

"Don't you?" John glared and for once the glare was effective. "Do you at least know what you did, by letting him out?"

"I assume you're about to inform me."

"You opened the door to Hell, Sherlock."

"They open all the time, I don't see how this is any different."

"They open into Hell only, that's the point. This is a door out of Hell, the only one in existence. It's closed now, but it was open long enough for many demons to get out."

"How did we get out then? Before it opened?"

"Angels can travel through dimensions. It's complicated." John sat back and rubbed his forehead. "Actually, it'd probably make sense to you, I assume that's how you think all the time. Lucifer needed to be out of Hell to open the door, but he couldn't get out without tearing it open, so he needed someone who wasn't from Hell to walk him out. He could transport us out, because we aren't originally from Hell."

"Makes sense."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"You seem unhappy."

"Unhappy that you think like the Devil? Now why would that possibly worry me?"

"About the situation," Sherlock clarified, though John's raised brows let him know immediately that this was unnecessary.

"Why would I not be? We let the Devil out of Hell, Sherlock. Him and a whole bunch of demons."

"You didn't seem so concerned when you made the deal in the first place."

"You didn't seem so concerned when you were going to stay in Hell forever!"

"Really, John, if you're going to complain that I failed in killing you and freed some demonic entity in the process, at least spend some time yelling at yourself for enabling it."

"So it's my fault, all of sudden?"

"Isn't it?" Sherlock reached for the magnifying glass again, this time with his right hand, which proved to be a fatal mistake. He dropped it with a hiss and John took the opportunity to test his resilience to pain one more time, by dousing his fingertips with antiseptic and then lotion.

"It probably wasn't the wisest course of action," John said as he wrapped fresh gauze around Sherlock's hand. Try as he might, Sherlock could see no regret on his face. There was guilt, though that seemed to disappear, or at least lessen, when John looked away from Sherlock's injuries, indicating that was precisely that he felt guilty about, however little sense it made.

"Ah, lighten up. Finally, there shall be excitement!"

"I don't even want to know what you're thinking."

"Did Lucifer say anything else?"

"He didn't say much of anything. Apparently some kind of a rule was broken when he burned you," John said. "He wasn't allowed to do that. I'm not sure what that means, but he was livid when he left."

"Yet there was no retaliation. You're fine, I'm fine."

"I'm fine because he swore I would be. There is some supreme law governing everything, apparently. You…" John hesitated. "He promised you wouldn't be harmed. By doing that to you, he crippled himself somehow."

"Interesting…" Sherlock stared off into space. A limited number of demons could be dealt with. A Devil, subject to rules? That was in no way a hindrance.

"What happens now?" John asked, packing the first-aid kit.

"I thought we might kill some vampires."

John hiccupped and shook his head "I used to have a list of things I was certain - or I hoped - I would never hear from you. This used to be quite high."

"Oh? What else was on the list?"

"Number one is still 'I wonder what this giant red button does'."

"Dull."

"Apparently. Why vampires?"

"I did some research, barely a sufficient amount, of course, but I was otherwise occupied at the time, and it lead me to believe the hairdresser was murdered by vampires."

"Wonderful." John fitted the scissors into the kit, then looked up, "Wait, the puncture holes were on either side of her throat."

"Yes, that was tricky, I grant you. It is perfectly plausible that a vampire would use, not only a human agent to lure his victims in, but also implement medical instruments, to cover their tracks, suggesting they intend to stay hidden and, if caught, put the blame on the humans in their employ." Sherlock leaned back, forcefully pressing his palms together. The injured hand protested, but he didn't relent. A little pain was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. "Which makes it all the more pressing to locate them. We will start by searching the basements of the buildings near which she was found."

John snorted and shook his head. "Fine. But we are getting something to eat first."

"Excellent. How do you feel about Spanish cuisine?"

THE END.


End file.
